A Different Path
by loyal2U
Summary: PRTFPRDT: When Mesogog teams up with a villian from Wes' past, he quickly discovers its going to take more than him and the dino rangers to stop them. CHAPTER 15 UP! WesJen TomKim R
1. New Path

Disclaimer: I don't own Power Rangers and never will…already have money so don't need any from writing this.

_A/N: Starting from when Wes gives up the morpher, this story is going to start going AU. Although you'll see some canon moments, do not assume anything else from the series occurred after Dawn of Destiny, such as the lightspeed team up or the 'beware of the knight episode. You'll get a surprise at the end, and my story 'Second Chance' will pick up from there._

A Different Path

Wes slowly scaled the stairs as he made his way up to the main floor of the clock tower. While talking to his father at the hospital, he had gotten an urgent call from the others, telling him to meet back at the clock tower to discuss something important. He could only imagine whose idea that was. With a few more strides, Wes had reached the main room and walked in to see five pairs of eyes looking straight at him, and by the looks on their faces, he could tell this wasn't going to be good. He directly averted his eyes to Alex and took a deep breath before stepping forward and casually engaging in conversation.

"Got your message, you said it was urgent, I came as soon as I could. So what's up?"

To Wes' surprise it wasn't Alex's voice that answered his question and it wasn't Alex who stepped forward from the line of five and stood directly in front of him.

"Wes…we…we want you to know that every since joining this team, that you've been a great red ranger, both on and off the battlefield. You have taught Jen, Lucas, Trip, and I so much in the ten months we've been here, and we'll forever be thankful for that. But, this fight with Ransik…it isn't yours; it's ours."

Seeing as how Katie couldn't go on by herself any longer, Lucas stepped forward and continued on from where she had left off.

"We want you to know that this was not our decision, and we hate it just as much as you do. But there are 13 billion other people in our time that are counting on us to save them, and allowing you to wear the morpher when Alex is alive would be damaging to the timeline."

"But Alex saved my father from dying. Just by doing that he changed history. Why is that different from me wearing the morpher? And what about Eric?"

Trip stepped forward, looking as though if Wes had directed the question towards him.

"Alex is the Red Time Force Ranger that came and fought in the past, according to history banks, and it needs to stay that way. Alex saved your father's life because he wasn't supposed to be killed by Ransik. Ransik doesn't belong to this time. Just so you know, Eric will be keeping the Quantum Morpher. Because of Time Force sending it back, it became apart of history, apart of your present. He was destined to find the morpher, and help us to defeat Ransik."

Jen was the final one to come forward, and it was visible that she had tears in her eyes.

"I'm not sure what happens from here, but I do know that you'll be okay. You can finally have a life you enjoy waking up to Wes. You're the most amazing person I've ever met, and no matter what, don't ever forget you."

Alex slowly stepped forward and once again, for the second time held out his hand and waited for the morpher to be given back to him.

"I…I don't…I don't understand. I thought I was allowed to keep the morpher, I thought that's why you gave it back to me."

"I'm sorry if I confused you by my actions, Wes. I gave you back the morpher temporarily, so as a team you all could defeat Dragontron before more destruction was caused. And you did an excellent job. You all did an excellent job. But it is still my responsibility to take command of this team and the morpher. Time Force orders. It's not my choice."

Wes blinked a few times before his brain fully registered what was going on. He couldn't believe this was happening. Five minutes ago he was the happiest guy in the world. He had just been given a second chance with his father, Eric and him seemed to have finally found some common ground, and he thought he was going to be able to keep the morpher. How fast things could change in such a short amount of time. He was losing everything that he had come to cherish in his life. Friends. A destiny he actually wanted. Jen.

"I…um… alright. So that's it. That's how this ends? Um, okay. Thanks for letting me be apart of this. And good luck…with Ransik and everything. I guess, I guess I'll see you guys around…maybe."

With that said, Wes undid the strap of the morpher from his left wrist and for the second time reluctantly passed it over to Alex. Once the morpher left Wes' fingertips he gave everyone a brief miserable looking smile and turned on his heels to leave. But as he reached the stairs, he turned back to his former teammates.

"You guys can keep the car here as long as you need it, I'll get it when you guys…you guys leave. And if any of you need anything, please, don't hesitate to ask."

With those last things said, he looked at each of them one more time, and took off towards the stairs.

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Wes patiently stood outside after knocking on the hospital door to his father's room, before pushing it open when he heard the command to come in. A good look at his father brought a smile to Wes' face. At least something turned out well today.

"Hey, thought I drop by to see how you were doing and if you needed anything."

Alan Collins glanced up at his son and could already tell that something was bothering him. He motioned for Wes to take a seat before answering his son's question.

"I'm doing great. The doctor says I can go home tomorrow, they just want to keep me overnight as a safety precaution. But, I think the real question is, are you alright?"

Wes took a deep breath and ran over what had happened in his head, and asked himself that very question. Was he alright? No he wasn't. With the question answered in his mind, Wes went on to tell his Dad everything. Not just about what had happened with the Rangers, but everything that wasn't and hadn't been alright in his life since he was ten. They talked for hours about the things Wes had been burying inside since he was a kid. And before either of them realized it, they had relayed Wes' entire life up until this very moment.

"Well, what do you plan on doing now, son?"

"I have absolutely no idea. I don't know what I want to do. I always assumed that taking over Bio-Lab was what I was going to do. I didn't count on the last ten months happening to me."

"How about playing pro tennis, you're an amazing tennis player. Hell, you're just as good if not better than that…Arty Roddick kid. They say he's a rising star."

"Its Andy Roddick, Dad, and no. I hate tennis, I just played because mom played, and it made me feel like I was at least doing something that made her proud."

"Your mother, no matter what, would have always been proud of you, Wes. You are so much like her it's almost scary. You know, right before your mother found out she was pregnant with you, she had wanted to be a teacher?"

"A teacher? Why a teacher?"

"I'm not exactly sure where she got the idea, but while she was training as a student/teacher, she would come home everyday with the biggest smiles on her face. And she would sit down and tell me the funniest stories about some of the kids in the class she was in." A soft smile crept on Alan's face as memories of those days played in his head. "She said being around kids kept the child within her alive and teaching them made her feel like she was doing something important."

"Why didn't she ever become a teacher if she loved it so much?"

"Because she loved you more. Because taking care of her new born baby and watching him grow was a feeling that teaching could never replace."

"Wow. I never knew that about Mom. There's a lot I don't know about Mom."

"You were young when she passed away, it's not your fault Wesley." Alan averted his gaze to the window, when something caught his eye. "Ah, look at that, the sun is starting to rise." He turned to look at his son and saw a far away look on Wes' face. "I tell you what, you go home and get some rest, you had a long day yesterday. And when I get home from the hospital, we'll pull out all the old scrapbooks, pictures, and home videos I have of your mother. Would that be a start to getting to know your mother?"

"I'd like that a lot."

"Good, now get out of here and get some rest."

Wes slowly stood up from the hospital chair and made his way over to the wooden door. With a look back at his dad, Wes said, "Love you, Pop."

Alan smiled at the use of the nickname he hadn't heard in a long time, "Love you too, son."

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"Alright, I expect you all to have your papers turned in by Friday, no exceptions!"

Wes didn't pay any mind to the professor's voice booming through the lecture hall. His twelve-paged paper was already done, so he didn't have to worry and stress over it like the other 87 percent of his class. As he walked through the university campus, his eyes couldn't help but notice the sun gleaming off of the clock face of a tower in a far away distance. It has been two months since he had given up the morpher, and returned to having a 'normal' life. Well as normal as life could get when you had a group of mutants bent on destroying your city. At least things were beginning to look up for him now.

The relationship between him and his father was getting better everyday. It was probably the closest they had been for as long as Wes could remember. He felt like he could tell his Dad anything, and talking to him had never been so easy. Wes thought his Dad was going to have a heart attack when he told him that he wanted to go back to school and earn his teacher certification in order to become a teacher. But Wes' father had told him he supported anything Wes chose, as long as he was happy. What surprised Wes even more was before he started going to school; Wes' father had not once tried to coax him into working for Bio-Lab or the Silver Guardians.

Speaking of the Silver Guardians, that brought him to his next thought, Eric. He and Eric had somewhat developed a minor friendship between the two of them, compliments of Wes' father. They weren't really close, but every once a while they would go out for a drink or meet up for lunch. They would talk about sports, news, politics, what was going on with the rangers, and even days back in high school. It wasn't perfect by any means necessary. They still argued all the time, no doubt about that, but it was the way friends' argued, not bitter enemies.

Enemies. It had been two months and Ransik still had eluded the rangers. To make matters worse, according to Eric, Frax had betrayed Ransik and was now starting a battle of his own, which meant instead of stopping just one super villain, they had to stop two. And with each battle, Wes had to watch from the sidelines. He hadn't seen the rangers in two months either. He would tell them 'hi' which was sent through Eric, but that was the only contact they had had. With a combination of what he saw on TV and what he got from Eric, apparently the rangers weren't getting along well. And Wes could bet his life that the reason for this was four letters long.

The growling of his stomach brought Wes out of his thoughts, reminding him that he needed to grab some lunch before his next class. Having finally reached his bike, he shoved on his helmet, mounted his bike, and sped off towards downtown Silver Hills.

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"How's school going for you?" The man behind the counter asked. Wes concluded that he felt like pizza and decided to go to an old friend's pizza parlor for lunch. He quickly swallowed the chunk of pizza he just took a bite of, to answer Tony's question; he was hungrier than he thought.

"So far, so good. I just want to get all the class stuff out the way, so I can start doing some hands on interaction with kids. Get a feel if this is right for me or not."

"You're a kid at heart, Wes. Any kid would be lucky to have them as your teacher. So have you decided what subject you want to teach?"

Wes wiped his mouth with a napkin, "I think I'm going to go with Spanish. I would like to teach math, but I think there's more freedom in teaching Spanish. Plus, I'd have to refresh my brain on my math skills, and I don't want to do that. I can already speak Spanish so it'd be easier to transition into teaching kids."

Tony chuckled softly as he took Wes' plate and cup. "I'm sure. What you need to do is refresh yourself on time management; you're going to be late for class if you don't get moving."

"Aww man…thanks for lunch, Tony. I'll see you later," and with that Wes went racing out the door.

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He ran as fast as he could down the path and through the park to get to where he parked his motorcycle. _Good idea Wes, parking on the OTHER side of the park _he scolded himself. Finally seeing his bike in sight, Wes picked up his running pace a bit more, getting closer and closer to it by the second.

Before Wes knew what hit him, the tail end of a Ford Taurus struck him on his left side and sent him straight to the ground. After the shock left his body, and knowing he was fine, he immediately went to try and push himself up. He heard some people gasp, others yell for help, but only one person ran up to see if he was okay.

"That was some hit you took, are y-…Wes?"

At the sound of his name he looked up into his helper's eyes and upon seeing them, went completely still. He hadn't physically seen those eyes in what felt like a lifetime, but he saw them every night in his dreams.

"Jen." The words came from his lips in a soft whisper.

"Long time, no see Wes. Are you okay? Can you get up?"

"Yea, I'm fine, just got hit by a car, no big deal." She smiled at his attempt of a joke and then went to help lift him up off the ground. Wes noticed that around him people started to disperse with the sight of Wes being okay, and also noticed that the driver of the Ford Taurus had left too. But at this moment, he didn't care.

"Mind if I ask what had you in such a hurry that you didn't notice a car backing out?"

Jen's question brought him out of his thoughts and he turned to smile at her. "I was rushing to my bike so I could get to class on time. My professor doesn't like it when people come in late; he tends to make you pay for it later."

"Oh well you better get going then, I'm sure this definitely slowed you down."

Wes chuckled, "If your not busy, do you want to take a walk or sit down somewhere?"

"But you just said-"

"That's not important anymore. I haven't seen you in two months. Missing one class isn't going to hurt."

"Then no, I'm not busy at all."

Wes smiled as he and Jen started to walk towards the path that weaved through the park and to his pleasant surprise the first thing she said to him was, " I miss you, Wes."

"I miss you too. I miss all of you." With that out in the open, they both just enjoyed each other's presence for a few minutes until Jen broke the silence.

"So, a teacher. Never in my life would I have pegged you for the teacher type. So how did that come about?"

"How did you know about that? Are you stalking me? "

"Ha. You wish. Your not the only who goes to see Tony."

"Tony, I should have known."

"So are you going to answer the question?"

Wes laughed, "Its just something I'm trying, who knows how it will go. My mom wanted to be a teacher and for some reason I think it just might suit me." He paused for a second before asking the question that was on his mind. "How's it going with Alex?"

Without even hesitating, "He's driving me crazy. I don't know what's gotten in to him. He's so bitter and distant. Of course it doesn't help matters that him and Lucas are constantly going at it. I have no control over the orders he assigns to the team; he doesn't listen to anyone's suggestions or what they have to say. And to top it all off, our relationship is in trouble, and for some reason he doesn't want to deal with it. The mission comes first, he says."

Wes couldn't believe he was about to defend Alex's actions, but he shook off the thought and said it anyways. "He's probably just stressed Jen. I mean you weren't exactly relaxed when you were leading the team. Not to mention he's had to deal with the animosity that the others are giving him. That's got to be tough on him."

"Yea, I guess. We're all pretty stressed. Ransik hasn't made a move in over a week. I'm beginning to think he's up to something…something big. Trip thinks its like a calm before a storm."

She was worried, he could tell by the look in her eyes and the sound of her voice.

Before he could try and comfort her, he heard the familiar bleep of a morpher and watched as Jen lifted up her wrist to answer the call.

"Jen, you need to report back to base immediately, the _captain_ wants to see us."

"I'm on my way Lucas." Jen averted her eyes over to Wes and gave him an apologetic look, "I'm sorry Wes, but duty calls. It was really good talking you. Hope I see you around." With that she turned around and took off in a sprint in the direction of the clock tower. Wes eyes stayed glued to her back until she was out of his sight, then he began his own journey back to his bike.

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Silver Hills was in a state of panic. Buildings were getting sucked into the sky; Giant robots were shooting lasers from every which direction, and cyclobots had completely taken over the city. The rangers were doing as much as they could, but it was obvious they were fighting a losing battle. Eric, along with the Q-Rex, was busy battling it out with the latest version of Frax's robot, while the rangers stayed on ground trying to destroy as many cyclobots as they could. The Silver Guardians were doing as much as they could, going around the city helping out anyone who needed a hand. Trip had been right after all; this was one hell of a storm.

The sound of Eric's cry caught Wes' attention and he took off in the direction it had come from. By the time he reached Eric, he found him on the ground battered and demorphed.

"Eric! Are you alright?" Wes bent down to try and help pull Eric to his feet.

"Yea, I'm…ahh!" Eric took several deep breaths before attempting to stand up again, but stopped when he looked past Wes and towards the streets. "We've got company."

Wes turned around to see about eleven cyclobots heading their way. Wes was way outnumbered and with Eric injuries, running was not an option. Wes quickly lifted Eric off his feet and hauled him over to a spot behind an abandoned car.

"Stay here, I'll take care of them and then will see if we can get some help, or take you to a hospital."

"No, your outnumbered Wes, you need my help."

"You're in no condition to fight, and if you permanently injure your self, the city is one ranger down. We can't afford that, so stay put, I'll be back." With that said, Wes jumped over the hood of the car and rushed towards the group of cyclobots.

In a flash, two of the cyclobots appeared on both sides of Wes. Simultaneously, they both attacked Wes with two kicks to his ribs, but before they could land, Wes blocked the first one, grabbing its foot and pushing the robot down onto its back, while the other kick landed on his left side. Stunned for only a moment, Wes brought up his arm to stop the next punch thrown, and then aimed on of his own to the cyclobots midsection.

Three more joined the fight, as one of them went to swing its sword at Wes, but with a backbend and then a sweep kick from underneath, it was quickly knocked down. Wes got back on his feet only to be knocked back down by the other two. As one approached Wes near his feet, he brought up his leg and hit it straight in its 'face' sending it to the ground.

Another sweep kick took out the third member of the trio, but Wes' break was short lived as three more showed up. The first one threw a punch, which Wes easily avoided and in the process caught its arm and flipped it over on its side. Another came from behind him and grabbed Wes around the neck, cutting off his air supply. Wes brought his elbow back into its body, and then pulled it over his shoulder, slamming it on the ground. A snap kick quickly took the approaching cyclobot out, but also prompted the remaining three to come finish the fight.

Before the cyclobots even reached Wes, they were taken out by streaks of yellow, blue, and green blaster fire. Wes whipped his head around to see the Yellow, Blue, and Green Time Force rangers sprinting towards him in an urgent fashion.

"Guys, thank god you here, Eric is hurt-"

Lucas stepped forward, "We know, Alex and Jen are getting him to the hospital now. His leg is broken and we don't have the time to use our medical equipment to heal him."

"But you have to. You can't afford to be down one ranger, that thing," Wes pointed to the halted Doomtron, "is destroying the city."

"We know. We're doing the best we can. Trip thinks he's found a way to stop it. Once we destroy it, we'll go and find Ransik and Frax. But right now we need you to get to safety. There's a bunker near Bio-Lab, your father is there, waiting for you."

"No, Lucas, I want to help you guys."

"Wes," Katie interjected, "please. You can't help us. You'd be completely defenseless if Ransik or Frax found you. You want to help us, then please, go to the bunker and stay there until one of us comes for you."

Wes didn't answer, just nodded his head silently and took off in a sprint through the debris towards Bio-Lab. But before he got out of earshot he turned around and yelled back to his three friends, "Good luck!"

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The bunker was packed full of people that Wes didn't or couldn't at the moment recognize. He was looking for only one face out of the many that were there, and after twenty minutes he found it.

"Dad!" Wes grabbed his father in a fierce hug and held on for a little while before pulling back to get a good look at him.

"Wes, thank god your all right. I tried looking for you when the attacks started but those robots swarmed the car."

"Are you okay, did you get hurt?"

"I'm fine. The rangers came before the driver or me got hurt. They told me to come here and that they would send you here if they found you."

"Well they found me, so here I am. Dad, you should know Eric was hurt while he was battling Doomtron. He got battered up and broke his leg. The other rangers took him to the hospital to get medical attention. He should be alright, though."

"Good, good."

Silence enveloped the two afterwards. Not one word was said between them for the next hour and a half. Wes knew that it wasn't because they had nothing to talk about, but for the same reason no one else in the bunker was talking. They were all listening to the sounds of battle above them. There was the constant echo of blaster fire, and earlier they had all felt a violent shake reverberate through the walls, which had caused some of the cement in the bunker to loosen. Just a few moments ago, they all heard a massive explosion not far from where they were hiding, and Wes silently prayed that the rangers weren't on the receiving end of that blast.

Another twenty minutes went by and still nothing had happened. Wes was starting to get irritated and decided that he had stayed put long enough. He needed to know if they were okay. If Jen was okay. "I'm going back up. I need to see what's going on."

"Be careful, son."

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Wes couldn't believe that he walking through what was downtown Silver Hills. The buildings that remained were still intact but there was debris everywhere. If it wasn't a flipped over car, or a cyclobots' body, it was parts from Frax's robot, lying all over the street. It would take a lot of time and money to get Silver Hills up and running again and Wes hoped that rebuilding the city was something the people of Silver Hills could look forward to.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

Wes whipped his head around to see four of five rangers, demorphed, and walking towards him, with smiles on their faces. "You did it! You guys did it!"

In another moment there were nothing but hugs and yelps of joy in the streets of Silver Hills as they celebrated the victory over Ransik and his goons. With a first glance at the rangers, they all were covered in dirt and had accumulated some bruises and scratches, but other than that, everyone was fine. Then something hit Wes.

"Where's Alex?"

Trip happily turned to face Wes and answer his question. "He's on the beach with the time ship, cryogenetically containing and freezing Ransik and Nadira."

"What about Frax?"

Wes noticed how everyone's face went somber at the mention of Frax.

"He was destroyed with Doomtron. We didn't know he was in there when we destroyed it, at least until Ransik told us."

"So its over? Its really over?"

Katie took the honors of answering the question. "Yup, its really over."

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Wes stood on the beach, watching his father and Eric, say goodbye to the time force rangers, al the wind blew calmly through his hair. It was time for them to return home, to their own family and friends. The rangers had spent the past two days with Wes at his house, due to the fact that they had to blow up the clock tower when they had been ambushed. He had fun while it lasted. He would miss them dearly; they were the best friends he ever had. Well, minus Alex. Wes still wasn't sure how he felt about Alex but seeing as how this was the last time they would ever see each other, he didn't think it appropriate to do something stupid now. Wes looked back to the rangers to see them coming his way. He took deep breaths as he prepared himself for the goodbyes.

Alex stepped to him first, reaching out to take his hand. "I'm not sure exactly what to say besides good luck and thanks for your help."

Wes smiled at his bluntness and responded with, "Then we'll just leave it at that. Good luck Alex, and thanks for your help." With that said Wes watched as Alex went towards the time ship and with a flash of red, disappeared inside.

Wes turned his attention to Lucas, who had just walked up to him to say goodbye.

"You take it easy on that track, Lucas."

"Yea, well, at least now I have my drivers license." Lucas chuckled lightly before Wes stepped up and enveloped him in a hug.

"Take care, Lucas."

"You too."

Lucas stepped back, patted Wes on the shoulder and headed towards the time ship, disappearing in a flash of blue.

Before Wes could even turn back to her, Katie already had him in, literally, a bone-crushing hug. "Woah, Katie! Katie!"

"Sorry, Wes. I'm going to miss you." Wes looked to see she had tears in her eyes.

"I'm going to miss you too, and your hugs." He gave her his own version of a bone-crushing hug before she stepped out of it.

"Bye, Wes." With that Katie walked to the time ship and entered into the time ship, leaving in a flash of yellow.

Wes took a deep breath, two down, two to go. He swung his body back towards Trip and stepped up closer to the man that had been the best friend he ever had. Trip had tears coming down his face and Wes couldn't help but let his own eyes water.

"Trip…"

"I know. I'm going miss you too. Can I keep my hat?"

Wes grabbed Trip into a hug and patted his back a few times before answering, "Yea."

Trip, following Lucas and Katie headed into the time ship, but before he went in, Wes saw Circuit pop out of Trip's bag.

"Bye Wes."

"You take care of Trip, Circuit."

"Always have, always will." Both Trip and Circuit vanished into the time ship in a flash of green light.

Wes turned his eyes towards Jen, and the hold he thought he had on his emotions broke as tears fell down his face. He bent his head down to try and cover the tears, for at least a few seconds. Jen approached him, placing her hands on both sides of face; forcing him to look at her.

"I don't know what to say, Jen."

"Don't say anything. I'm going to miss you Wes Collins. Don't you ever forget me."

"Never could." Wes bent his head down a little lower as Jen placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

And just like the others she started her stride towards the time ship, and was almost there before Wes yelled out to her.

"Wait! Jen wait!"

Jen whipped her head around and looked at Wes with curiosity and tears in her eyes.

"I love you, Jen. I love you so much. Don't you ever forget what an amazing woman you are, and don't change for anyone. Your perfect they way you are."

Wes watched as tears began to pour down Jen's face, and as he began to approach, she finally opened her mouth to say something.

"I told you not to say anything," and with that said, she broke out in a sprint for the time ship, disappearing in a flash of pink light.

Seconds later Wes could hear the time ship engines firing up, and right above it, a time hole rapidly began to open. His heart shattered into pieces as he watched the ship disappear into the sky. His friends and the woman he loved, gone along with it.

"Are you ok?"

"I'll be fine, Dad."

"So what now son?"

"I'm not really sure, finish school, I guess. Pick up our lives where we left off. There are no more mutants; Silver Hills can look forward to the rebuilding of the city. I think the future looks pretty bright."

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"Jesus Wes, how much crap do you have?"

"First of all it's not crap, it's a microwave. And secondly, you don't have to help load if you don't want to, Eric."

Wes chuckled as he watched Eric turn around and reach for another box full of 'crap'. After more than a year and a half of school and having finally acquired his teaching certificate, Wes had been hired two weeks before as a Spanish teacher for a high school in southern California. Luckily for him he'd found a nice one-story house near the school and decided that for now, it would make due for his new home. Teachers had orientation in three days so Wes was leaving today, so he'd have some time to get settled in.

"So how long is the drive?"

"Its about 3 hours, not bad at all. I wish I could take my bike with me. I'm going to miss riding it."

"Yeah, I can see how your car can get boring, you know, being new and all."

"Is there ever a sentence that comes out of you that isn't sarcastic, vulgar, or insulting?"

"Nope…wait that was one."

"That's a word not a sentence."

"Same damn thing."

Wes laughed again. He was going to miss his daily encounters with Eric. They had become good friends in the past year and a half.

"I see you two finished packing up the car."

"Oh, hey Dad. Yea we finished packing, all that's left is me."

"Leaving so soon, I thought you could stick around for lunch?"

"I can't. I have to meet the movers at four and its almost twelve thirty, I should probably get on the road now."

"Alright, well call me when you get there. And let me know how everything turns out."

"Will do, Pop. I'll see you next weekend." Wes walked over and gave his father a hug before going up to Eric and saying goodbye.

"Good luck teaching all those hormonal brats a different language. Remember when you decide to quit, and you will; remember there's always a job for you on the guardians."

"Thanks, Eric. I think. I'll see you next weekend," and with that the two friends parted.

Wes looked over at his Dad and friend one more time before jumping into his brand new white Chevy Avalanche and slowly headed down the drive way and out to the main street.

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The house had two bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a full kitchen, living room, small dining area and a carpeted basement. He had a pool and Jacuzzi in the back, although it was not as big as the one back home. The backyard was a nice size too; even with the pool in the back, there was still enough room for some patio furniture and a grill. It was the ideal house for a bachelor.

The movers had arrived on time and unloaded all of the furniture within an hour, leaving Wes to the task of unpacking. Which is exactly what he started doing five hours ago and in that time, he had completely unpacked his kitchen and the majority of his bedroom. Wes opened another box and started to search through it to see what contents it held. He paused as he came across an old wooden picture frame that had been turned upside down. He picked it and turned it over, wiping the dust that had collected on it, off. The woman in the picture was absolutely beautiful. She was smiling in the photo and you could tell just by her smile how warm and kind she was. She had the prettiest shade of blue eyes Wes had ever seen, and her blond hair looked absolutely flawless. When he finished looking at the picture, Wes had concluded he was a lucky man to be able to call a woman like that his mother.

Wes propped the picture up on his nightstand, exactly where it had been at his old house and continued to unpack the box. After a while, sleep begun to succumb over Wes' body and soon enough he passed out and fell asleep on his new bed. Another amazing woman crept into his mind and he allowed himself to dream about her tonight. Just like every other night.

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"Welcome teachers both new and returning to the first staff meeting of the 2003-2004 school year. For those of you who don't know me I am Doyle Burchett, Assistant Principal of this prominent high school. I apologize in advance for the absence of our principal, but she couldn't make it today. But before we get started on planning curriculums, I would like to give the new teachers an opportunity to look at their classrooms and meet their fellow faculty members. I recommend all teachers to go to the gym and grab this year's rulebook, spirit shirts, etc. When we meet back in the theatre in thirty minutes, please sit with your respective department, for you will be making quick introductions before we start the meeting."

With that Wes watched as all the other teachers got up from their seats and all headed in different directions. Wes wanted to check out his classroom, if he knew where to go. Instead he chose to play it safe and go to the gym first. As soon as he walked in, Wes immediately looked up and around to see several banners hanging up. Some said 'State Champs' while others read 'Warrior Pride'. They were drawn in blue and black paint, so Wes assumed that those were the school colors.

The first table Wes approached was the 'Spirit Wear Table' where the teachers' were supposed to pick up their shirts and could also look to buy other items such as sweatshirts, jackets, car decals, and coffee mugs. Wes spotted the spirit shirts and in an instant his face turned into one of disgust. As he picked it up and unfolded the shirt to get a better look, he wished he hadn't. Black and blue tie dyed shirts that had 'Warriors Gettin' Groovy' written in white letters was not something he was going to wear, Spirit Day or not

"They're pretty ugly, aren't they?"

Wes averted his attention to the left, where the male voice had come from. The man looked a little older than himself, but still young. He was slightly taller than himself, and his hair was short but spiked. He also wore glasses. He looked friendly enough. "Pretty ugly? They're horrendous. Its free and I still don't want it."

The other man laughed at Wes' comment and went to put his shirt back down; Wes followed suit.

"So are you new here?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"No, its just your wearing the same facial expression I know I'm wearing. I'm new here too, to the school I mean. I've lived here for almost two years."

"Ah. Well you figured right. Only I'm new here in general, but were both the new teachers. It's nice to know I'm not alone. So what subject are you teaching here?"

"Science, and you?"

"Spanish. Are you excited about teaching?"

"I'm looking forward to seeing how teaching goes for me. Science wasn't my strong point in high school, so I find it kind of ironic that I'm teaching it. So am I excited? A little bit, petrified mostly."

"Hopefully, if we can get by the first week, the rest of the year will be smooth sailing…hopefully?"

Wes and the other man chatted for a little while longer as they walked through the school hallways back to the theatre hall. They both had decided to go with each other to find their respective classrooms so that they had less of a chance of getting lost. A few minutes ago a voice had come over the P.A. system telling the teachers to return for their faculty meetings. When they got to the hall doors, the man turned to face Wes and reached out his hand, "It was nice meeting you…?"

"Wes, Wes Collins. And it was a pleasure meeting you…?"

"Oliver. Tommy Oliver. Good luck with your dept. meeting and I guess I'll see you around. Oh, and Wes, welcome to Reefside."

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A/N: I know it was a bit of a time jump, but I needed to get the story moving. This is to be continued in 'Second Chance'. Hopefully, I'll have that posted by Wednesday. Hit that pretty purple button below and let me know what you guys think. Until next time!


	2. Move Along

Disclaimer: I don't own Power Rangers. It belongs to Disney.

Chapter Two: Move Along

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"When using the future tense, all your going to do is add," Wes neatly wrote the closings to the verbs on the white board as he verbally told the class, "ia, ias, iamos, or ian to the end of the verb. Remember, unlike other tenses you don't drop the ending. For example saying I eat is 'comer', but the future tense, I would eat is 'comeria'. Travis what would the verb 'they would eat' be?"

"Comerian."

"Correct; Cassidy, can you tell me what the verb 'you would run' be?"

"Correrian?"

"No, but I bet if you stopped talking, when I ask you again, you'll know the answer."

"Senor Collins, pregunta?

"Yes, Cassidy?"

"What is a young guy like yourself doing teaching spanish at a high school?"

The loud ringing of the bell echoed through Wes' room as he watched his fourth period class jump out of their seats and rush to the door to file out. "Since I know you all are perfect students and I know you did your homework last night, just for your info I'm collecting it when you get back from lunch. So you have forty-five minutes to double check your answers."

After Wes cleared off his desk and made sure his classroom door was locked, he too left the room, heading towards the teachers lounge. As Wes strolled through the hallways of Reefside High School, he noticed a few of his students heading towards the lunchroom, and sent a few smiles in their direction. It had been exactly a month since school had started here at Reefside, and Wes couldn't help but realize how fast time had flown. Being a teacher had proved to be something that he really enjoyed and was looking forward to the rest of the school year.

Upon walking past a conversation between two students, Wes could hear them gossiping about what they thought about Reefside's new heroes, the Power Rangers. Wes let a small smile sneak up on his face as he thought about the multi-colored heroes. They not only brought back memories, but they also assured him that no matter where evil went, the Power Rangers would always be there. When they first had showed up, there had only been three. One red, another blue, and the last yellow, but a few weeks ago a black ranger had shown up as well. Wes could tell that he was much more experienced than the other three. His train of though was broken as he approached the lunchroom door.

Wes reached for the doorknob to the open the faculty entrance, but pulled back his hand as he saw it turning to the right. Wes took a big gulp as the mystery person came through the door.

"Ah. Mr. Collins, glad to run into you. I just spoke with Dr. Oliver, he tells me that you two are somewhat friends, is that so?"

"Yea. You could say that." Wes narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he wondered where Principal Randall was going with all this.

"Perfect. Dr. Oliver wants to take his science classes on a field dig this Friday, but without the correct number of chaperons, its not going to happen. District policy. Since you're his friend, I'll assume that you'll be more than happy to help him out. I'll have a substitute take over your classes on Friday."

With that Wes watched as she turned on her heel; the sound of her shoes echoing through the hall as she stomped off towards the cafeteria full of students. Wes heard his name being called back in the lounge and shifted his gaze from Randall to Tommy.

"Hey, man sorry about Randall. I tried to tell her that I could cancel the dig but she really insisted that we go. She even volunteered herself as a chaperon."

"Oh, come on," Wes and Tommy headed back into the lounge and took a seat at one of the free tables in the corner of the room to eat lunch. "She treats the rest of us teachers like the scum on her shoes, but when it comes to the great 'Dr. Oliver' I swear she puts you up there on a thirty foot pedestal. Besides, I would have gone anyway if you had asked."

They found other things to talk about for the rest of the lunch period, until the six- minute bell rang through the school, ending B lunch for both the students and the teachers.

"Do you know who has detention duty today after school?" Tommy's question came as a mystery to Wes, but he shook it off with a smile and answered his question.

"Actually, I have it today. First time this year. Is it as fun as they say it is?" Wes' sarcasm didn't go unnoticed as Tommy's laugh carried through the room.

"Depends on who've got in there. It's a Wednesday, so there really aren't that many people. Less than twelve if you're lucky."

"Alright, thanks. I'll see you later."

Wes parted ways with Tommy as they both made their way back to their respective classrooms. Unfortunately for Wes, B lunch was a split lunch, meaning you went to fourth period for thirty minutes, down to lunch, and then back to fourth for another thirty minutes. That also meant another thirty minutes with Cassidy Cornell. He took a deep breath as he opened the door to his classroom.

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Conner sighed for the millionth time, before slamming his locker shut and heading over to where Ethan and Kira stood. School was finally over, but just like the past two days, they had to stay after school for detention, due to truancy. It'd been like this ever since they had become rangers. Occasionally they would miss a class, or show up twenty minutes late to class. This was not a good start to their senior year. Dr. O had covered for them at first, but he too was starting to get some heat for his absences as well. They eventually learned to just take in whatever their teachers, or Randall dished out as punishment.

Once all three were together, they made their way towards the detention hall. Once again Conner sighed and with a look around he noticed they were the only people in the hallway. Assured that no one would overhear him, he quietly began to talk to his newfound friends and teammates.

"This is so unfair. We wouldn't miss so much of school if Meso-goon would lay off with the monster attacks. I have detention the rest of this week and next week for all my absences."

"We know Conner, we have detention with you too, remember? You're not the only fighting crime in primary colored spandex."

"Well look at the bright side, at least today we have Mr. Collins for detention."

"That's a bright side for you, not for us. You see the way I see it; Conner and I get locked up in a room with a Spanish teacher for over an hour in a quiet, isolated room. You, on the other hand, see it as being locked up in a room with quote on quote, 'the hottest teacher in school' and actually find that entertaining. Do you see the difference between the two?"

"Actually, I agree with Kira on this one. Mr. Collins is an awesome teacher. I have him right before she does for third period. Although, I don't see why girls make such a big deal about him, or Dr.O for that matter?"

"I think you're just jealous that all the attention is being taken off of you due to two gorgeous teachers. You finally have some competition."

"I am not jealous! I've dated a lot of girls and to be honest they're nothing to brag about. Besides I could use a challenge, it's getting pretty easy."

"Conner, you are the most pig-headed…"

The beeping of their communicators cut Kira off, at once they went and found an empty corner of the hallway to settle in; Conner answered his. "Yea?"

Haley's voice came from over the line in a rushed tone. "Elsa is in a wooded area of North Reefside. Tommy and I think she's looking for the other Dino Gems."

"Wait, there are more dino gems?"

"Now is not the time, Ethan. Just get down there and make sure she doesn't find or leave with anything."

"You got it, Haley."

"Be careful guys, chances are she's not alone. Good luck!" With that, the communication was cut and the rangers darted out of the school into a hidden area behind the building.

"Great. Now we'll get detention for not showing up for detention. See what I mean? Mesogog every time."

"We can worry about that later, Conner."

All three did a quick look around the area once again before flicking their left wrist and moving their hands through the air, "Dino Thunder, Power Up!"

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Tommy dropped down into the chair that resided in front of the computer in the Dino Lab. Another battle won. And Tommy couldn't be happier. At first he had been worried about the kids going out and fighting on their own, but with him retrieving the Brachio Powers two weeks ago, he felt re-assured they would be safe. A whole month had gone by since he had given the three rangers their morphers, and they're were days where he seriously questioned his decision.

First, there's the school jock, Conner Mckinght. Conner is as arrogant and stuck up as high school guys come. A superstar on the soccer field and known to be a ladies man off the field, Tommy wondered if this kid really had would it took. But underneath Conner's façade, there was a strong, responsible young man that was starting to show up more and more with every battle they had fought. He still had his problems with leading the team, but he could tell that Kira and Ethan were slowly beginning to trust him with every fight they walked away from.

Then, there's the all too talented Kira Ford. The only thing to say about her is that she is an exact opposite of Conner. Kira is more independent than Conner, smarter than Conner, and more respectful than Conner. When he had first met Kira he had assumed she was a quiet girl, whose love for her guitar was the only emotion you would see come out of her. But she was also caring, thoughtful, intelligent, and most of all talented. The only time you would see her irritated or upset was when she was around a certain red ranger. Kira reminded Tommy of another aspiring singing/song writing female ranger of his past.

Lastly, there was technical genuis, Ethan James. Ethan with his quirky comments and sarcastic nature made a perfect barrier between Kira and Conner. Ethan had surprised Tommy by being not only the best fighter on the team, but also a great strategist. Although sometimes too easily distracted by the simplest things, Ethan made it up on the battlefield with his determination and strength of heart to do the right thing.

Together these three kids, including himself, made up the Dino Thunder rangers, defenders of Reefside. But with that thought another one made its way to the front of Tommy's mind. After the battle he had explained to the rangers that there were indeed more Dino Gems. There were six gems in total and four of them had already been found and put into good hands. But where were the other two? Mesogog had found the black Dino Gem from right under Tommy's nose, without even giving off a sign that he had known where it was. Had they already found them? Was that what Elsa was looking for? So many questions ran through his head, after twenty more minutes of trying to figure out a solution, Tommy decided his time wasted could go to better use like grading quizzes. With that, he shut down the lab and went upstairs.

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"Elsa. Once again you have failed me!" Elsa cried in pain as he mentally tortured her for the failure in her last assignment.

"Master, the rangers knew I was in search of the gems and I was completely outnumbered. I felt it best to return and conduct a wider search for the gems, than to risk more than a loss to the rangers."

"Find them Elsa. Find those gems, they are in this city somewhere so find them!"

Elsa struggled to her feet as she pulled herself off the floor, watching her master return to his quarters. Those gems had been right under her nose and if it weren't for those fucking rangers she would have had them! Once she got to her feet, she slowly walked over to the computer system and once again began to search for the signal of the dino gems. After more than two hours she had finally found what she was looking for, and even better, the gems were together. A grin spread across her face, her master would be proud. But before closing out of the file and writing out the coordinates, she realized something else in the corner of her screen. In an area to the north of Reefside and in a completely different region from the dino gems, there was a massive spike in energy surging in the ground.

"What have we here? Do you know what that could be?"

Elsa whipped her head around to see her master standing right over her left shoulder. "I'm not sure; whatever it is, it's giving off more power than the dino gems. Are you sure there are only six gems, Master?"

"Of course I'm sure, I'm the one that helped to create them!"

"I didn't mean to question you, Master."

"Leave now, Elsa and retrieve the gems. Take no one with you, its less obvious, and do not return to this lair without them in your hand."

"And what of this," Elsa pointed to the fluctuating readings on the screen, "power source, Master?"

"I shall send Zeltrax to retrieve it, he should be able to at least succeed with this. Where, Elsa is the source located?"

With a stroke of the keys Elsa pulled up a physical map on the screen of the computer, "Just outside of the city Silver Hills."

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She absolutely loved the house; the pictures the realtor had sent her didn't do it justice. Buying this house was a new phase in her life that she was more than ready for, and she finally felt as if she deserved it.

"Hey sweetie, what do you think?"

"I love it, its beautiful. And its only thirty minutes from L.A., so we'll still be close to the city."

"Yea. Although with those monster things running around, I'm worried about the safety in this city."

"Don't worry, Ryan. With the Power Rangers defending the city, I'm sure all will be fine."

Ryan walked up to her, placing his hands on her hips and pulling her closer to him so that their lips barely touched. "How can you have such blind faith in people you don't even know?"

"I just do," she stated with a knowing smile. "It's been a month since those goons showed up and the city is still standing. So the rangers must be doing something right."

Ryan smiled at her before leaning down the rest of the way to plant a soft kiss on her lips, pulling her into his strong, warm arms after it was broken. As he held her to his body she softly whispered in his ear, "I love you Ryan Thompson."

"I love you even more, Kimberly Hart."

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A/N: I know its moving kind of slow at the moment but I've got to get the base down first. In my last chapter I said that the story was going to be continued in a 'Second Chance' but I decided to scrap that. It's easier this way. Tell me what you think so far. So please REVIEW! Until next time!


	3. Hostages

_Disclaimer: I don't own Power Ranger, and I don't intend to make money from this._

_A/N: I planned to have this posted a long time ago, but school got really crazy, so I had to postpone the story. Luckily, most of my classes just had test in them so the rest of this following week should be slow and I'll have time to write and post more chapters. I want to thank all of those people who reviewed! You guys are driving me to get this story written! Well enough with the talk…and on with the story!_

**Chapter Three: Hostages**

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Zeltrax had waited until darkness swept over Silver Hills before going to search through the city for the source that was causing such a powerful energy spike on their radar. He had been searching for at least an hour and still hadn't found anything that could lead him to the object. The signal from his tracking device had lead him here; in a construction zone of downtown Silver Hills. Why would something as strong and powerful as this object be in a construction zone? That question invaded his mind for a little while until he decided that whatever he was looking for, did not reside on the surface and he needed to get underground. Zeltrax drew his sword and unleashed a numerous amount of attacks on the area where the signal was coming from. He stuck out his hand to fire off another blast, but halted when a saw that the moonlight was gleaming off of something.

He walked closer to pick it up, but found that it was still surrounded by a lot of the earth. Being careful not do damage whatever it was he was digging out, he bent down on one knee and started to use his hand to break the rock surrounding the metallic article. It proved to be much larger than he thought for after forty minutes of digging, he still hadn't retrieved it. Zeltrax was starting to lose his patience as he let out a frustrated groan before pulling up more of the cement. He stopped as he got a good look at what he had just uncovered. It appeared to be a robotic head of some sort, although it looked relatively disassembled with wires and bolts everywhere. Intrigued by his new discovery, Zeltrax continued to keep digging, and after two hours he had completely dug out what appered to be a robot. Or what was left of it. Its entire metal armor was a metallic bronze color and its face shiny silver. The 'eyes' of the robot were also popping out and what would have been it jaw and chin was completely missing.

A loud beeping brought Zeltrax out of his trance; he curiously looked around to see what was causing the noise. He looked behind him and found the cause of the noise lying right on the ground where he had left it. Zeltrax had noticed that the tarcker had gotten louder and the beeps were much more closer together. Curious, he turned back around towards the robot and slowly began to approach it. He heard the increase in sound and in the closeness of the beeping. Could this robot be what had caused the power spike? Pondering about what to do, Zeltrax decided to return back to Reefside, to tell his Master the news. Summoning up his strength, he bent over and picked up the hunk of metal from the ground. He had a feeling that even if this robot wasn't the power source; it could at least be of good use to them. All it needed was a tune-up.

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Elsa let a smirk spread on her face as she walked through the lair, towards her master's lab room. He would be pleased to know that she had successfully brought back the gems. White and Pink. When she had first grabbed the gems, she had instantly felt the energy spread through her body and tingle her fingertips. Such power these gems had, now if only they could defeat the rangers and retrieve the other four. The world would be on its knees. She lightly knocked on the door, before walking in with her master's permission.

"I've found them, Master."

"Excellent. There power shall be my secret weapon in this war with the rangers."

"How do you plan to use them Master?"

"Simple. Take these gems to the lab and begin the work on weapons and suits needed for these gems."

"Suits, Master?"

"You have a lot questions, Elsa. Why can't you settle for doing what you are told?"

"I didn't mean it that way Master. What I meant to ask is do you plan on making your own version of rangers?"

"That's precisely what I plan on doing. But first you need to encrypt the gems allowing them to bond with whomever I give it too, rather than whom it chooses. I also want the wearer to be completely under my control, no free will."

"An evil encryption will be placed on the gem, Master. Is that all you ask of me?"

"No, its not. Have you created an opportunity to grab Oliver?"

"Yes, Master. He and some of the teachers are going to a dig near the woods. I will lure Oliver away from the other three and when the time is right, I'll signal for Zeltrax to attack."

"Good. You must be going now Elsa. You have a field trip to attend. And when you return with my prisoner, get to work on those gems."

"Yes, Master."

Elsa left without another thought and quickly made her way to one of the invisa-portals. It would take her to the Principal's office of Reefside High School.

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"Alright everyone have a seat and we'll get this show on the road."

Conner and Ethan sat down together in the last seat on the right side of the bus, while Kira threw her body on the opposite side.

"I'm too tired to dig up sixty-million year old fossils today. Not to mention I was up until 3am finishing my English paper."

"Then I highly recommend you grab some sleep right now, it's going to be a long day."

"Mr. Collins!" Kira shot up at the sound of his voice and frantically scooted over to make room for the Spanish teacher.

Wes gave her a soft smile and sat down next to her. "Thanks Kira, I don't mean to intrude but Randall wants some supervision in the back of the bus."

"I don't mind, it's not like were doing anything secretive back here."

Silence quickly consumed the four and Ethan decided he needed to start a conversation before he was going to snap from all the awkward tension. But before he could figure out the first question to ask, Conner beat him to the punch.

"So Mr. Collins, where did you live before moving to monster-infested Reefside?"

"Oh. I hail from Silver Hills. It's about three hours north of here."

"I've heard of Silver Hills before, didn't they have a monster problem about a year and a half ago there?"

"Yeah, they did, but like Reefside they had their own set of Rangers and after a long battle they…"

Ethan started to reminisce about all the things he had read about when the 'mutants' as they called it, had invaded Silver Hills. But with the mention that Mr. Collins had come from Silver Hills had got his wheels turning.

"Wait a minute. Collins. Are you in anyway related to Alan Collins, the C.E.O. of Bio-Lab Industries?"

"I should have known the moment I said it that you would put two and two together Ethan. And to answer your question, Alan Collins is my father."

"Woah. That's insane. What's the son of a multi-millionaire doing teaching a bunch of high school kids?"

Conner and Kira whipped their heads towards Wes in an eager fashion, dying to know if what Ethan said was true.

"Teaching, to me, is something fulfilling and I love to do it. I would rather be here teaching you all than running my father's company."

Conner, Kira, Ethan and Wes continued talking about Wes' life for another ten minutes until they had finally arrived at the dig site. Wes stood up to go and meet up with Tommy and Randall at the front of the bus, but before he left he turned around once again and addressed the three teens.

"Hey, as a favor, if you guys could keep our conversation to yourselves, I'd really appreciate it. I don't want anyone, especially Cassidy, to hound me with a bunch of questions. I came here to get away from that."

"Don't worry Mr. Collins your secret is safe with us."

Satisfied with Kira's answer and the promise that Ethan and Conner had in their eyes, Wes turned back around and headed towards the front of the bus.

"Alright, I want everyone to get into groups of five. Make sure these are people you can get along and work with because they are not only the group you will be digging with, but you'll also be working together on a project I'll be assigning on Monday. So pick wisely. When you've chosen your group, come and notify myself, and one of the on-field paleontologists. They'll get you set up and show you which area you are assigned to dig in."

With that said, Tommy turned around and led the students off of the bus and onto the excavation field. With the arrival of the other bus, he quickly stepped on and explained the to them again what he had just told the other students and led them too off the bus. With the group of students separated into groups of five and chaperons in place the digging had begun and Tommy joined the others on the field.

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Kimberly still couldn't get over how amazing her new house was. The best feature to her was being right next to the woods. The trees and animal life made it an incredibly peaceful and serene place to live. She felt that she had her privacy from the world, and it gave her a place to think. Which was the reason she was resting on the patio now, to think. With her arrival in Reefside and the presence of rangers here, she had been reminiscing about her days as a ranger a lot lately. While she had first gotten to Florida, there wasn't a minute that went by where she didn't think about Zordon and the rangers. Were they okay? Did they hate her for leaving? When she had went back home for Christmas and seen how well everyone was doing, including Tommy, she had decided it was time for her to move on too. That's when she met Ben. Ben being the man that had caused her to write the 'Dear John' letter to Tommy. Their relationship had been great and had lasted for a few years, but once again Kim was struck with another difficult choice. She could follow Ben to Italy where his career had taken him or stay put in Florida to continue training girls at the academy. Kim had reminded herself that she had walked out on one team before, and promised herself she wouldn't do it again. Ben had been upset when she told him her choice and in his disappointment had not only left for Italy but also had broken things off.

She had been depressed and upset about the breakup, but her friends had made sure she kept her mind off of Ben and moved on with her life. One friend, who had been instrumental in her getting over Ben, was her friend Ryan. He had spent a lot of time with her, making sure she was okay and helping her on nights when she missed Ben the most. But then one day when once again Ryan had come to help her, she realized that she needed to be paying attention to what was in front of her, not behind her. Within a few months her and Ryan had finally started dating. A few years later and they were still going strong, which is what brought her to Reefside. Ryan had been a relief pitcher for the Florida Mariners, but had been traded and sent to play for L.A. Not wanting to risk losing another good thing in her life, she packed up her things and moved with Ryan to L.A. Luckily, there was a very prestigious gymnastics academy also in L.A. that had been more than happy to hire her as a trainer. So now here she was in Reefside, California living with Ryan.

Coming out of her deep thoughts, she took a deep breath and welcomed the smell of the pine and wet leaves of the woods. Finished with thinking about the past, Kim decided that she would take a run through the woods right now. Getting up from her spot on the back porch, Kimberly slipped inside the house to grab her water bottle and running shoes, and then set out on her run through the woods.

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"Alright, I am so done with playing in the dirt. My hands are getting dirty and thanks to Avril over here, my shirt is completely ruined. Why am I in this group anyway?"

"Okay, first of all, I had nothing to do with you falling in the dirt. How was I supposed to know you can't climb down a ladder? Secondly, you're in this group because no one wanted you in theirs and our group unfortunately was the only group that needed two more people. So believe me Cassidy when I say, were both each other's last pick."

Ethan watched as Kira resumed her digging and stabbed her pick into the dirt with excess force before ripping it out and exposing more of the rock fossil her and the others had found.

"You know Cassidy, if you want, you and Devin can go and film everyone like you wanted to, while we finish the dig. It'll make things easier on all of us."

"That's actually a good idea Ethan, with my camera I could get some really good shots of the fossils everyone is finding. What do you think Cass?"

"I'm not sure what kind of story I'm going to get out here but anything is better than hanging in this sandbox. Okay, Devin, lets get out of here."

With Cassidy and Devin gone, Kira seemed to have calmed down and the trio continued working on uncovering the fossil. As Conner trotted over to the toolbox to trade his brush for a small chisel, he heard a scream pierce the calm air. Backed up by Ethan and Kira, he ran until they found the reason for the panic.

Zeltrax and a group of tyrannodrones were standing in the middle of the field, swinging and knocking down anyone that got in there way. With a nod to each other, Conner, Ethan, and Kira engaged the beasts that were causing so much chaos.

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Tommy and Wes both traded looks of concern when the heard a shriek coming from the opposite side of the dig field. Jumping out of the hole, and rushing towards the direction of the scream, they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the group of tyrannodrones and Zeltrax.

"What the heck are those?" Wes inquired as he dropped into a fighting stance upon seeing the bunch of monsters.

"You should get out of here Wes, I'll distract the metal head while you get the students to safety." Tommy took a look past Zeltrax to see that Conner, Ethan, and Kira taking out the tyrannodrones one by one.

"In case you didn't notice the students are already gone and hiding on the bus, that's the safest they can get. And I'm not going to leave you to fight this thing." Without listening for Tommy's response, Wes charged after Zeltrax, engaging him with a jump kick to the face.

Upon his landing Wes again struck Zeltrax with another kick, knocking him down on his back. With an angry grunt Zeltax lazily stood up and swung his staff at Wes' head, only to miss when he leaned backwards.

"My business is not with you human. Just tell me where Oliver went and we'll be on our way."

Curious, Wes looked behind him to see Tommy gone, but shook it off as he returned his attention to the monster,"Not a chance." Wes threw a punch at Zeltrax but the cold, metal shield he was carrying blocked it. Wes pulled back his fist and launched a successful snap kick at its midsection, causing Zeltarx to stagger back. Wes quickly approached his opponent but suddenly rolled away as a powerful blast shot out of Zeltarx's hand. Before he could recover another blast was sent his way, throwing him a feet away from where he was just laying.

Wes gathered his strength and pushed himself up of the ground, only to find Zeltarx looking down at him and his sword pointed directly at Wes' face. "For the last time human, where is Oliver?"

Wes defiantly looked up into the cyborg's face, planning on telling him where to go, but was interrupted when three blasts sent Zeltrax flying onto his back.

"Look who decided to crash the party?" At the sound of the other voice Wes turned around to see the Black, Red, Blue, and Yellow rangers, their weapons still pointed at Zeltrax. The black ranger approached Wes and lent out his arm, and with another muster of his strength, Wes pulled himself up.

"Are you okay? You could have gotten hurt facing a guy like that." The black ranger's tone was filled with both worry and anger, Wes noticed oddly.

"I'm fine. It wouldn't be the first time I've battled things like him. Since you've got this taken care of, I need to look for my friend. He disappeared on me." Without waiting for a response out of the ranger, Wes jogged past the other three and into the woods to go and look for Tommy. He didn't get far though as he was roughly tackled to the ground by one of the remaining tyrannodrones. "Don't you guys ever quit?" Wes launched punch after punch into the beast's stomach, fighting to get out of its grip. Before landing another punch to the face, the monster picked Wes up and threw him over its shoulder into a near by tree.

Pain shot through Wes' side as he slammed against the tree and then landed on the ground with a loud thump. Wes waited for another attack, as his opponent slowly began to approach him, but it never came. Out of nowhere another fighter leaped into battle swinging and kicking at the beast. Wes could tell by her small frame, that his rescuer was a woman, but by watching her fight you could tell she was experienced. In less than a minute she had defeated the beast and sent it retreating back to the field where Wes had just come from.

The woman approached Wes with a worried look on her face and knelt down to check him out. When she was finished, he watched as she offered her hand out, and he gladly took it, as he once again pulled himself up. Opening his mouth to tell her 'thank you', he was stopped short as a look of fear spread across her face. Before he could turn around both, himself and the woman were hit in the neck with some sort of tranquilizer and together they both hit the ground. His vision instantly became distorted, and with a look to his left he could see the woman was out cold. Moving his head to the direction from which the shots came he could see the robot he had fought earlier, and another woman, only this one dressed in all black and short hair, approaching them fast.

"I told you not to underestimate Oliver and his little punks. With every battle they get stronger. Master will not be pleased that you have once again failed Zeltrax!"

"That's what I plan to use these two for, they will prove useful to Master, Elsa. You shall see."

No longer able to fight off the drug in his system, and the words from the twosome's conversation become slurred and incoherent, Wes let his eyes close as unconsciousness claimed his body.

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A/N: I hope to get another chapter posted by Monday, so be on the lookout for it. Don't forget to review, they mean a lot to an author. Until next time!


	4. Secrets

_Disclaimer: I don't own the rangers but one day I will…jk._

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Haley let out a small yawn and wiped her eyes for the hundredth time before resuming her activity on the lab computer. Tommy had come to her distressed when he realized that one of his fellow teachers had went missing. Several scans over Reefside and two searches by the rangers later, they had all come to the conclusion that Wes must have been taken by Zeltrax. With that in thought she had begun trying to penetrate Mesosgog's computer system to see if there were any signs of Wes, but it was proving very difficult to hack the system. Mumbled voices and loud steps coming down to the lair broke her concentration from the computer.

"Anything, Haley?"

Haley turned around in her chair to come face to face with three very weary teens and a stressed out paleontologist. "Sorry, Tommy. Mesogog must have reinforced his security systems since the last time I hacked in. It's almost impossible. But I'll keep trying." With that said, Haley turned back towards the screen and continued typing.

"What are we going to do Dr. O?" Kira's voice interrupted the silent atmosphere that had descended on them a little while ago.

Tommy brought his hand sliding down his face before answering her question. "I'm not really sure. I know he lives by himself, so there's no one for him at home. And it's a weekend, which gives us tomorrow and Sunday before any questions can be raised from the school."

"Shouldn't we call his family and tell them he's gone MIA?"

"No. What if we find him tomorrow and it turns out he wasn't taking by Mesogog. We still have no hard proof, we'd be worrying his family for nothing."

"And what if he was taken Conner? We can't risk not telling them. Ethan's right, we should call his family. And I don't know if you remember, but his dad doesn't sound like someone you want to piss off."

Tommy looked up at Kira from his spot on a chair with a look of inquiry, "How do you know who Wes' father is?"

"On the bus ride to the dig, he told us he was from Silver Hills. Ethan kind of figured out his family tree and Mr. Collins confirmed it. But he told us not to tell anyone."

"Alright," Tommy stood up and looked around at his fellow teammates, " The three of you should get home, I don't want your parents to worry. Make sure you get some sleep tonight; tomorrow is going to be a long day. I'll call Wes' father and let him know what's going on."

After a few 'goodnights' and 'see you tomorrows', the lair was left with only two occupants.

"You should go too, Haley. You look exhausted. We can look for Wes tomorrow."

Haley let out another yawn, "I guess you're right. Maybe sleep is what I need. I'll see you tomorrow, Tommy."

Tommy walked Haley to his front door and watched as she got into her car and drove off down the dirt road. With a sigh, he closed the door, and reached for the cordless phone. He needed to make a phone call.

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"I can't believe you want to revive that hunk of metal. What use could it possibly be to us?" Elsa's face had a look of disgust as she scanned the robot with skeptical eyes. Zeltrax had made some repairs to the pile of junk he had brought back from Silver Hills, claiming that it was the power source they were looking for. Now he was planning to use the power of the geno-randomizer to power it up and bring it to life. She sneered once more before stomping across the room to the lab table where the two gems rested.

"Something tells me there is more to this cyborg than meets the eye. It was buried deep in the ground when I found it, as if it were to be hidden. Its programming is far more advance than anything I've ever seen. Whatever it turns out to be, it will prove useful to us." Zeltrax bent over to lift up his newly repaired creation and set it down in the geno-randomizer.

"Before you do anything else, why don't you go and check the status of our prisoners."

"Why can't you do it?"

"I'm not the one that brought them here! Besides, I have to finish the encryption of the gems before Master returns. Now go check on them!"

Spinning on his back left foot, Zeltrax angrily marched out of the lab room, towards the holding cells.

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"So, you have any idea why they're holding us here?"

"My guess is as good as yours. Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"With my past I hardly think this is a mistake. They want something from us."

"Your past? What does that mean?"

Kimberly completely ignored Wes' question as she her mind continued to wonder. If these monsters had kidnapped her because they knew she used to be a ranger, then why grab him too? What was the purpose? Or maybe they didn't know about her ranger past and it was just as Wes said, wrong place, wrong time. But it was hard to accept that when a voice in the back of her mind was screaming at her to not be so naive. "Look, forget what I said. I just have really bad luck, that's all. But I do have a question for you, how did you get caught up in that fight with the monster in the woods?"

"I'm a Spanish teacher at Reefside High School, and a friend of mine, who is also a teacher at Reefside, decided to take his science classes on a class dig. Everything was fine, until we both heard a girl scream. When we came up from the ground hole, we saw this group of black monster things and some metal guy standing right in front of us. Some of the students were fighting them off while, me and Tommy confronted…"

Kim whipped her head towards Wes and looked at him closely, "What did you say?"

"Some of the students fought…"

"No, after that. Did you say your friends' name was Tommy?"

"Yea, why?"

There was that voice again, telling her that this was no coincidence. She had been brought to a city that now harbored rangers, she was being held captive by the villain, and now a guy named Tommy is conveniently thrown into this. This was definitely not a coincidence.

She was brought out of her thoughts when a sharp ring pierced the silence. Kim turned her head to see the monster called Zeltrax pounding on the cell bars looking in on both her and Wes. Without a word said between them, he turned around and went back the way he came from. With the threat of him gone, Kim leaned back against the wall before asking her next question to Wes, but she had a gut feeling she already knew the answer. "What's his last name? Tommy's last name."

"Oliver. Tommy Oliver."

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Eric took a slow, deep breath as he knocked on the door before him. He and Alan had gotten a call from one Tommy Oliver claiming that he believed Wes had been kidnapped. Eric had dismissed it immediately, telling Alan that Wes knew how to take care of himself, but Alan being the father he was insisted Eric go to Reefside and check it out. So here he was knocking on the front door of Oliver's house at nine thirty in the morning. Eric sighed impatiently as he balled his fist and moved to knock on the front door for the third time. But before his hand reached the door, a young teenage girl swung open the door with a look of annoyance covering her face.

"There's a door bell, you know," her gaze landing on a small rectangular doorbell to the right of the door.

"Sorry." Eric sneered. Not at all liking the attitude that was radiating off of some little girl. "I'm looking for Tommy Oliver?"

"Oh. Are you Eric Myers?"

"That would be me."

The girl opened the door wide enough to let Eric in and shut it once he was inside the house. "Dr. O is in the kitchen. Just go through this room here and turn left, you'll see it from there."

Eric curiously looked around the house as he followed the girl's directions towards the kitchen. There were dinosaur artifacts everywhere; he even had a small version of a t-rex skeleton model next to the living room entrance. Anyone could tell this guy was definitely into his work. Upon entering the kitchen, Eric saw Oliver pouring himself a cup of coffee and cleared his throat to announce his entry.

"Would you like a cup? I know it was quite a drive."

"Sure. Black."

Tommy took another cup from the cupboard and silently poured the hot substance before handing it to Eric and showing him to the table that resided on the opposite side of the kitchen.

"So, you want to tell me what's got you thinking that Wes has been kidnapped?"

Tommy took a long gulp of his coffee before clearing his throat to answer Eric's question. "Yesterday afternoon, while on a field trip with my students, we were attacked by some weird creatures. The leader of them cornered Wes and me, I ran, but Wes stuck around and fought. I went to make sure that the kids had gotten away safe. That was the last I saw of him."

Eric considered what Tommy was saying about the events that had unfolded. The man he had described had sounded just like Wes, and that greatly unnerved him. Anger coursed through Eric's veins as he realized that his friend might actually be gone. "Well why the hell didn't you help him!"

"Calm down, Eric. I tried…"

"Apparently not hard enough." Eric thought long and hard about the situation. Why Wes of all people. No one else was taken. They had to have a reason. Did these freaks know about Wes' past? Were they using him to extract information?

"Look, if Mesogog does have Wes, then I can guarantee you he's still alive. Mesogog wouldn't let a good hostage bargain go to waste."

"How would you know? And who the heck is Mesobob?"

"Mesogog. And he's the guy currently trying to take over the city."

Eric gave Tommy a skeptical look, "For a science teacher you seem to know a lot about this guy."

"Me and him have a bit of a past."

Eric glared at Tommy demanding he tell the story. It was a look that could have melted ice. Tommy obliged without second thought. "A few years back, I was one of few interns who were chosen to go on a island and help research combining dinosaur DNA and technology. Everything was going fine, until one day a creature that called himself Mesogog attacked the labs. I escaped but barely. There weren't that many survivors. A few months ago I picked up signs of activity coming from Reefside, and I knew it was Mesogog. So I came here to see if I could try and stop him."

"Yea and how's that coming?" Eric couldn't help but glimpse at Tommy with amusement written on his face. Who was this guy to think that he had the resources to stop this freak?

"As you can see not very well." Eric watched as Tommy got up from the table they were sitting at to refill his coffee cup. "I'm not exactly sure why Mesogog hasn't used his newly obtained hostage, but when he does I'll be sure to let you know."

"That won't be necessary. I'll have my men down here in three hours and we'll conduct a search ourselves."

Eric detected a hint of annoyance in Tommy's voice when he responded, "I can assure you Mr. Myers that if my team has searched every inch of this city and Wes is nowhere to be found. I doubt you'll find him. Just leave the search to me. I'll find him."

Eric rose out of his chair and headed towards the entrance to the kitchen preparing to leave after he spoke his word. "Mr. Collins and I both appreciate that you've tried searching for Wes, but I suggest _Mr. Oliver_, that you leave this to the big boys. This Mesorob character has kidnapped a former ranger and he may beat down on the local rangers but he wont know what hit him when the Quantum ranger comes knocking on his doorstep"

A look of confusion quickly consumed Tommy's face as he glanced towards Eric. "Wes is a ranger?"

"Was a ranger; He lost his morpher, but I kept mine."

Tommy walked towards Eric and summoned him to follow. "If both you and Wes were or are rangers, then either way, there is something I need to show you."

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Kim sat silently on the opposite side of the cell where Wes was standing. She had been completely silent every since Wes told her about Tommy. He tried asking questions but Kim had remained blank faced and hushed. After several minutes he had quit trying and just stood back and watched her. But that hadn't put his mind to rest. It was obvious she knew who Tommy was, but why be so secretive? Why did she seem frightened all of a sudden? Wes' thoughts were interrupted when he caught the noise of heavy footsteps trudging down the hall.

"What are you looking at?"

"Gee, I don't know. Maybe the ugly _robot_ who's staring at me." Wes continued to glare at Zeltrax until the robot decided to turn back and leave.

"Your humor won't keep you alive much longer, _human_," and with that he quickly vanished back into the dark hallways.

Once Wes was sure that Zeltrax was gone and out of earshot, he turned his attention back to Kimberly. She seemed to have not even noticed the exchange between him and Zeltrax. Wes contemplated on asking her if she was okay, but he was sure he wouldn't get an answer. So he leaned back onto the wall and continued to wait for her to come out of her corner.

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Zeltrax entered the lab to see Elsa still working at the table, bending over to finish the encryption of the gems. He averted his attention to the geno-randomizer where the cyborg had been placed before he had left to check the prisoners. "Elsa, I'm ready."

Elsa didn't even glance at Zeltrax, but continued to bend her head and work on the gems. "Ready for what?" Her voice was full of impatience.

"I need you to turn on the geno-randomizer. I am not used to operating it, I could damage the cyborg."

"Damage it? Look at it! It's already damaged. I will not waste my time for your little science project," she sneered.

"We both know that it is more than that. The power from this cyborg is immense. This could be what we need to destroy the rangers! Don't turn your back on this opportunity."

Elsa seemed to contemplate what Zeltrax has said and within a few seconds had positioned herself at the control panel of the machine. "This isn't to help you. I want those rangers dead." Her hands began to fly to different sections of the panel and in a few seconds the sliding door to the geno-randomizer closed shut, locking the cyborg inside. With a few more keystrokes, the machine powered up and began the revival process.

Zeltrax noticed something was wrong when he spotted smoke coming from both sides of the machine. "What's wrong with it?!" Before he could get an answer, the lights and electrical equipment in the lab began to flicker on and off. He heard the machine lose power and in seconds the entire room was in complete darkness.

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Wes had had enough. Kim had been silent for far too long. "I know this question is going to sound stupid considering our current situation but, are you okay?" He hadn't really expected to get an answer from her, so he was surprised when her voice broke the silence.

"No, Wes. I'm not okay."

The voice wasn't frightened or angry, just monotone. Wes didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. Wes stood up straight again and tried to comfort her with reassuring words. "Kim, we'll get out of here soon. I promise."

Suddenly, the whole room went completely black, leaving Wes and Kim in a eerie darkness.

"Wes?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't do that."

It was a statement, "Nope."

Wes carefully started to feel his way around the cell to where he knew Kim had been sitting. He heard her slowly start to slide up the wall, giving her support to stand up. Wes slightly leaned forward to try and reach her, but instead his hands grasped one of the cell bars. To his surprise, he felt the bars start to move further and further away from him, realization struck him as he realized that it wasn't the bars he had grabbed, but the cell door.

"Kim. The door is open." Wes felt her brush up beside him and grab onto his shoulder lightly as she walked through the doorway first.

"Must have been a power surge. They released the locks. Lets get the hell out of here before the power comes back on."

"Or worse. Everyone realizes were out." Waiting for their eyes to adjust to the light and deciding on which direction to go Wes and Kim latched on to each other and took off in a jog down the darkened hallway.

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_A/N: This story is not abandoned. I know its been awhile but school has gotten really difficult. All this time did not go to waste though because I have been writing on paper and I am proud to say that this story is completely written. All I have to do is type it and post it. And seeing as how I'm always on the computer typing papers, that's shouldn't be too hard. Thanks for all those who have stuck by my story, there's a lot more coming. Please Read and Review, those things are my inspiration!_


	5. Lost and Found

_Disclaimer: Not even part ownership…this sucks_

_A/N: All right so it's definitely been less than a month, and I'm posting again. So hopefully this a good sign, because this was a long chapter to type, but I succeeded in finishing both this and my schoolwork so everything is working out. I would also like to thank the following for reviewing my last chapter: Cmar, BellaCordelia, GinaStar, Dark Red Knight, and Dragons In Our Midst, your reviews were great and I appreciated the time you guys took to leave your comments and insights. This chapter is for you guys. Enjoy! _

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"Look, there. I see light!" Kim excitedly pointed her finger in the direction of the faint glow that was illuminating the hallway. Wes' gaze followed her finger to a short distance in front of them.

"What do you think it is?"

"Don't know, but it maybe a way out of here." Kim led the way as they slowly and silently approached the doorway where the light was flooding out.

"You hear anything?" Wes pondered in a quiet whisper.

"No. There's no one in the room. We're clear to go in."

Kim slipped into the room with Wes trailing behind her, their eyes taking in their surroundings. There were several jars filled with random colored liquids that covered the walls. Control panels with various button and switches, circled half of the room. A large working table rested against the right wall; various tools lying out on the table. And sitting on the left side of the wall was a very large computer system. But the most noticeable feature of the room was a cylinder shaped machine made of glass, lying right in the middle of the room. Coming up with a conclusion, Wes broke the silence.

"It looks like some sort of lab. And seeing as how that panels are smoking, I think we may have found the source of the power surge."

Wes' voice lingered in the back of Kim's mind as she slowly approached the workbench on the right side of the room. Once she was in full view of the contents on the table, her eyes did a quick scan over the items lying there. Two objects caught her attention. They looked very similar to chunky rocks, but with a longer glance one could tell they looked more like jewels. One was pink and the other, white. As Kim's hand began to reach out to the pink rock, she noticed it started to glow and in a quick motion the rock was resting in her palm.

On the other side of the room, Wes lingered over to the cylinder machine placed in the middle of the room. Through the smoke that was still emitting from the machine, he could glimpses of something lying in there. Curious, he cautiously approached the glass and peered inside to look. Although it was hard to tell, Wes saw what looked like some sort of robot pressed against the floor. Stepping closer to get a better look, he placed his face inches from the glass and swept over the inside again. The armor of the robot was covered in a metallic gold; a gold Wes thought he recognized. _That looks like…_

"Wes, come look at this!"

Torn out of his thoughts, Wes reluctantly pulled his gaze from the machine and turned around to look at Kim. At first Wes thought the lab lights had been playing tricks on him, but with a second look he saw that wasn't the case. Kim was holding some sort of pink rock in her hand and it was glowing brightly. "What is that?"

In a mesmerized voice Kim answered, "I don't know. It was laying her on the table. I went to pick it up and it just started glowing." Kim rolled the rock from her left palm to her right. "I haven't felt anything this powerful since…"

With a glance down to the table, Wes saw a second rock, this one white, still sitting on the table. Curious Wes reached out his hand to pick it up, only to have it glow brightly and mysteriously land in his palm. The moment the rock was in his hand, Wes could feel the power radiating from it, flow through his veins. He had only felt something like this one time before. The moment he had activated the Red Time Force morpher. Both him and Kim sat there in silence as they let the power consume their bodies.

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"Master, I can explain…argh!"

"I don't want an explanation out of you Zeltrax! Not only did you manage to blowout my lair, but you also succeeded in disobeying my orders when I told you to the piece of scrap metal you managed to drag here."

"Master, I can assure you that the cyborg will be of great value to us."

"It had better, seeing as how you have revived it anyways." Elsa watched as Mesogog pulled his hand back from Zeltrax's head, and the yellow energy that had been floating out of his hand, receded. "Get off the floor Zeltarx and make yourself useful. Go and see what are prisoners are up to. Make sure they weren't frightened by your little escapade."

She watched as Zeltrax quickly made his way out of the room and towards the cells.

"Why I put up with you two incompetents is beyond me! I gave you an assignment Elsa that should have been followed."

His voice was quiet, but it held a deathly ice tone. She felt chills shoot down her spine before she answered her master. "I apologize for my error, Master. There is no excuse for what happened in the lab. I assure you, I will get it fixed right away."

"Go, then, to the bottom floor and turn on the backup power." Elsa bowed her head low before pushing up on one knee and preparing to walk out the door. "And Elsa. The moment you finish with that, get back to the lab and FINISH MY GEMS!"

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Zeltrax stomped through the hallways as he made his way towards the cells. He was still trying to get his bearings from the Master's mind torture. The flickering of the lights caused him to look towards the ceiling and down the hall. _Elsa must've turned on the backup power,_ he silently thought to himself. With another turn to the left, and quick glance to the cell five feet in front of him, he cursed. The cell was empty. Zeltrax spun on his left foot and made his way to the end of the hallway. There he pulled down a switch that would trigger an alarm.

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"Let me get this straight. You mean a science teacher and three kids, make up the ranger team?"

Eric still couldn't get over the scenery of Tommy Oliver's basement. It looked like a prop from a Star Wars movie. The most noticeable object in the basement was probably the computer on his right. It almost took up the entire wall. There was a large mat that rested to his left as well as some weight equipment in the corner. The medical area was next to the computer, pushed by the corner. A large bed rested there, with a medicine cabinet right next to it. And in the far off distance between to hallways there were lockers spread on the wall. Four of them colored red, yellow, blue, and black. He could tell the hallways lead to another part of the basement, but wasn't sure where. All in all, this was one hell of a base.

"Yeah. And we're not kids. We're eighteen." The girl who had answered the door earlier sent another look of insult Eric's way. Behind her stood the other two teenagers. One was dressed in a blue long sleeved shirt and black jeans, while the other boy wore a red soccer jersey and blue jeans.

"Your kids." Eric turned back to Tommy, who was sitting on a chair, next to the woman who had been introduced to him as Haley. "So now that you know about me and I know about you, what next?"

Tommy rubbed his chin before standing up and walking over towards his group of rangers. "I do have one question."

"What?"

"Why doesn't Wes have his morpher, if you have yours?"

Eric thought about the question for a long moment. Deciding on what he could and couldn't tell them. "Halfway through our mission, Wes was replaced by the original red ranger. The actual owner of the morpher had been injured and once he got better he resumed his position. Anything else?"

"No. I'll save the rest for when I talk to Wes."

"Hey, that rhymes"

"Good catch, Dr. Seuss. Next up, homophones."

"Bite me."

"Will you two cut it out? Why do guys have to be so immature?"

"That's enough out of all of you. We need to get down to business and get back to searching for Wes." With the attention of the three teens, Tommy continued. "Conner, you head back to the dig site. See if you might be able to spot anything you didn't catch yesterday."

"You got it Dr.O."

"Ethan and Kira, I want the two of you to split up and search the woods that were nearby. Keep a sharp eye for anything out the ordinary. Haley and I will continue with the computer search:

"Gotcha." Simultaneously the three teens stood in the wide area in the middle of the lab shoulder to shoulder, and along with the wave of their hands yelled, "DINO THUNDER, POWER UP!" In a matter of seconds they had vanished.

Eric turned back to Tommy and sent him a small look of inquiry. "You didn't choose them as the rangers, did you?"

"How did you know that?"

Eric let a proud grin spread across his face, "You seem like a guy who makes careful, smart decisions about what he does in his life. And choosing them as rangers was definitely not a smart decision. So I figured it must have been out of your hands."

Tommy sat down next to Haley and turned his attention back to the computer screen before answering the hidden question. "It was out of my hands. The gems choose their owners, not me. Not anyone. But they surprised me. They've done well as rangers."

Eric caught the hint of pride in Tommy's voice. "So why you look for Wes, what am I supposed to do?"

To his surprise it was the redheaded Haley who answered his question. "If you could watch this screen to my right, while I run a few scans over Reefside, that would be great."

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The noise of blaring alarms shocked them out of the trance the rocks had set on them. Wes' voice roared over the screeching sirens. "Time to go!"

Kim's voice stopped Wes from walking away from the table. "Wait. I don't think we should leave these things here."

"So lets grab them and go." While took off in front of Wes with the pink gem, Wes followed behind her, gripping the white gem. As they left the lab, Wes sparred one last glance towards the robot left in the machine.

"Which way." Wes looked both directions and decided that the direction they had came from was probably not the best choice.

"Left." As soon as started down the hallway, several shadows began to appear on the wall in front of them. Wes stuck out his arm to stop Kim in from walking any further. "Look."

"I know I see them too. What do we do?"

"No, not them. That." Wes looked ahead of him to see a floating green whirlpool spinning in midair. He looked at Kim then glanced back at the whirlpool. "I'm willing to bet that whatever it is on the other side of that thing is a lot better than being attacked by ugly monsters."

With a quick nod, Kim reached out her hand and then hesitantly pulled it back. With a deep breath, she once again reached out, and this time she was sucked right into the whirlpool, disappearing from Wes' sight. Wes followed Kim's lead and stretched his hand toward the whirlpool, but before he could touch it, a tyrannodrone pushed him up against the wall. Struggling to get the beast off, Wes summoned all of his strength and leaped for the whirlpool. Suddenly he was standing in the middle of a forest, Kim a few yards in front of him.

"Were actually out?" Kim laughed disbelievingly as she approached Wes. "I can't believe we made it!"

"Lets get out of here before they follow us here."

"Too late."

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"Whoa. Something just popped up on the screen" Eric's voice pulled Haley and Tommy from the computer, and all of their eyes were fixed on the two points that had appeared on the screen.

"That can't be right." Haley's hands immediately began to fly over the keyboard of the computer system. "The readings indicate that those two points are the dino gems we've been looking for."

"That's weird. They just appear out of nowhere."

Haley disregarded Tommy's concern and turned around to look at him. "Does it matter? I'm going to send the rangers to retrieve them."

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"You imbeciles! How could you let them escape with the gems! Do you have any idea what this will cost us!" Mesogog poured his anger and fury into his mental powers as he punished Elsa and Zeltrax for their incompetence. "Your mistakes are becoming most taxing." Elsa's small voice broke his concentration.

"Master, this may not be such a bad thing. Before the humans took the gems, I managed to finish the encryption on one of them. If were lucky, the gems will be activated, and that gives us an ally. A ranger ally."

Mesogog drew back his hands as he pondered on what Elsa had just said. Maybe this could work to his advantage. "Go to the city and find them. Force them into a fight. If they do still possess the gems and they are the ones chosen the gems have chosen, than the gems shall bond to them on instinct. And in time, we will have our ranger.

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One minute Kim's face was ecstatic, then the next it was full with worry as she stared at a distance behind Wes. "Too late."

Wes whipped his head around to see the tyrannodrones coming at them full speed. "Should we run?"

Kim stepped forward defiantly, coming up on Wes' left, her face set and grim. It reminded him of another face, another woman, who should have been standing beside him. "No. They're too fast; we wouldn't get far. I say we try and take them."

"Sounds good to me." And with that, Kim and Wes braced themselves for the wave of monsters that were charging towards them, but before they could get near Kim or him, they were all simultaneously knocked down by several streaks of blaster fire. Curious, both Kim and Wes turned around to see the red, blue, and yellow rangers on very big motorcycles. "You guys got here just in time"

As the rangers got closer, Wes noticed that they all had stopped as if in a moment of shock and suddenly began to look around as if trying to find the source of the voice.

"Who said that?" Asked the yellow ranger.

"It came from right in front of us, but I don't see anything."

Wes turned to look at Kim, and to his surprise saw that she too was looking at his direction in shock. "Wes," her voice was a whisper.

"Kim, what's wrong?"

"I can't see you. None of us can see you."

"What do you mean you can't see me, I'm standing right next to you."

"Oh, my god. You guys look." It was the yellow ranger's voice again, only this time she was pointing at the rocks that Kim and him had been holding in their hands. "They found the gems."

"And from the looks of it, seems someone has already bonded to the gem." It had been the blue ranger had had made the observation.

The red ranger said nothing, but held up his left wrist, "Haley we found the gems, but they've already bonded to the people who've found them."

A long pause, "Bring them back to the lab."

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What do you guys think? Don't forget to review!!


	6. And Then There Were Six

_Disclaimer: No ownership and not making a profit from this!_

_A/N: Okay, Wow. I owe all my readers an apology, I promised no more month long breaks and yet I did it again. School became extremely busy with exams, however school is over and summer has begun. I'll try to post chapters on a weekly basis since I have time to write now! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Oh, and f.y.i. I will be re-writing chapter five, I re-read it and it was pretty bad. That's what I get for trying to write a biology paper and chapter five at the same time. Not sure when I'll get to that, but I'll keep you updated! Enough rambling…on with the story!_

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Five years. He hadn't seen her in five years. Hadn't talked to her, or written to her in five years. And now here she was standing right in front of him wearing the exact same look he knew was also on his face.

"Wow. I can't believe it's really you? It's been…a long time."

Tommy watched as Kim pulled her stray hair strands behind her left ear. She had always done that when she got nervous. "I know. I see you've been busy." Not for the first time, her eyes scanned the lab, looking at the computer systems and the three teenagers who were still clad in red, blue, and yellow.

"Yea, well…" A very thick amount of tension was noticeably filling the room, and Tommy sought out a distraction from having to continue this awkward conversation. "Why don't the three of you power down and head home, we'll deal with this tomorrow."

Conner took the position as leader, "Whatever you say Dr.O. Let's go guys." Tommy watched as a flash of bright light changed them back into teenagers, and bid them goodbye as they headed up the stairs and through the trap door.

"Actually, I think I'm going to go too. It's been along three days and I'm exhausted. It was nice to meet you, Kimberly. And I'll see you tomorrow Tommy."

"Okay. Goodnight Haley. See you tomorrow."

The sound of the closing trap door was the only thing heard in the lab, until Kim broke the silence. " Dr.O?."

Tommy lightly laughed at her confused expression. "I have a PhD in paleontology, thus earning me the title of doctor."

Kim nodded her head in understanding, "So…what do I do with this?" She extended her hand and opened her palm to unveil the pink gem.

Tommy rubbed the back of his neck and let out a deep sigh. "If you can come by tomorrow, I'll explain everything to you."

Kim didn't say anything, but she nodded her head in agreement. "Umm, Tommy, if you don't mind, could I use your phone.'

"Yeah. Of course." He led her upstairs to the kitchen where his phone sat on the counter. Silently he handed it over to her and then trudged out the kitchen to give her some privacy.

His mind wondered back to when Kim and the others had first arrived in the lab. It had been so chaotic. First, there were the rangers all saying at the same time that the gems had already bonded to Wes and the women standing off to the side. He could also here Wes' surprised voice when first he had taken in the lab and secondly when he realized Eric was there. Then Tommy and Eric quickly realized that even though they could hear Wes' voice, neither could see him. And to finally top things off, when he had finally turned his gaze to the woman, she turned out to be Kimberly Hart.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by Kim's voice, "Tommy, what's your address?"

"1992 Valencia Road." He waited a second to see if she had any other questions. It crossed his mind as to why she needed his address, but he let it go and returned back to his earlier thoughts.

After Haley had finally gotten Wes' situation under control, and assured him that nothing was wrong, Wes and Eric had decided to leave. But not before Wes promised to return tomorrow so they could talk about what had happened. Once they had left, he dealt with problem number, that being Kimberly.

Again, Tommy was dragged out of his thoughts as Kim walked out of the kitchen. "Is everything okay?"

Tommy watched as she gave him a strained smile, "Yeah, everything is fine."

"Would you me to give you a ride?"

" Actually, I just called my boyfriend, he's on his way. But thank you."

"No problem." Tommy racked his brain for something to say. "So, how's life treating you?"

Kim looked at him oddly before letting out a small laugh. "You never were very good with small talk. Always making everything awkward. Good to see things haven't changed."

Tommy laughed in agreement. "However awkward it may be, are you going to answer the question?"

"Well, I just moved here from Florida with my boyfriend Ryan-"

"Out of all the places in California to move, you come to Reefside?"

"Yeah. Ryan's a relief pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers now, and I'll be working in the outskirts of L.A. We didn't want a place in the city so we decided to look in the suburbs."

"Well, besides the occasional explosions and megazord battles, Reefside is a great place to live."

They shared another laugh and continued to talk for another ten minutes before Ryan pulled into the driveway. Although Tommy hadn't seen her in years, he still got a bit jealous when he watched Ryan jump out the car and swoop Kimberly into his arms. With a last glance, Tommy turned around and headed inside.

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Back at Mesogog's lair, Zeltrax tends to the over-heated cyborg. Although, it did sustain injuries, the power boost seemed to have worked. All Zeltrax had to do was wait. He placed the cyborg neatly on the workbench, where the gems had once sat, and turned to leave. He failed to see the illumination of two glowing yellow eyes.

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"I'm so glad your safe Kim. I came home and I couldn't find you anywhere. Called your phone, no answer. So…what exactly happened?"

Kim took in a deep breath before answering, "What I told you on the phone. I went running before sunset, but got lost in the woods and I must've passed out. I woke up in some stranger's house and asked them to use their phone. That's when I called you." Kim didn't quite understand why she was lying to Ryan. He had been out of town until this evening, so he hadn't known she had been missing since Friday. And she didn't want him to know about her abduction, so she had kept the whole ordeal to herself.

"So let me get this straight. You pass out while running through the woods, and then wake up a few hours later in some guy's house, all the way across town. And you have no idea how you got there?"

"Yep. Pretty much. I know it sounds weird but your going to have to trust me."

Ryan briefly took his eyes off the road to look into her eyes, "Okay. I trust you." She felt his hand rest lovingly over her left hand, as they continued to drive home.

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"Alright guys I don't have anything planned for today, so were just going to watch Shrek with Spanish subtitles." A few chants of 'yea' and 'awesome' were the only responses he received from his first period class. Wes popped in the movie and turned off the lights in the classroom. It had been a long three days. And Wes was physically exhausted. His body had screamed to him to not get out of bed that morning, but he had ignored the pleas.

His thoughts drifted back to last night, after he and Eric had left Tommy's house. It had been a shock to learn that Conner, Kira, Ethan, and Tommy were the Dino Thunder Rangers. It was an even bigger shock to see Eric standing there in the basement. It turned out that Tommy had called his father and let him know that he was missing, so his dad had sent Eric down to help look for him. But once Eric made sure he was safe he had headed back to Silver Hills claiming that he needed to get back to work.

"Senor, puedo ir al bano?" The voice pulled him away from is thoughts as he turned his attention to the girl standing next to him.

"Si, rapido." Wes turned his attention to the screen in the classroom and joined his students in watching Shrek. _Maybe today won't be so bad._

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It was 5:30 in the evening and they were all gathered in the Dino Lab. Haley took her normal seat in front of the computer, only this time facing the group. Conner, Ethan, and Kira sat near each other in three separate chairs in the middle of the lab. Kim and Wes decided to share the medical bed that was sitting off to the side. And Tommy took up the hosts' position and stood in the middle of the makeshift circle.

"Before I get started, I would like to ask that you guys save your questions until after I'm done. For the four of, this is just a repeat, but I want you here anyway." Tommy looked at his audience one more time before continuing with his story. He told them of his days on the island and his involvement with the creation of the tyrannodrones. Wes and Kim had looked stunned when he told them that he had created the Dino rangers from the dino gems. He then went on to explain to Wes and Kim about his rangering past. He had also mentioned that both Wes and Kim had been rangers in the past. Finally when the story was done, he waited for their questions; Wes came first.

"So these gems have bonded to me and Kim?"

"Yes. The gems chose their bearer, and seeing as how you both have been rangers before, it's obvious you can handle the power."

"Does this mean that we…are we rangers now?" Tommy noticed the hopeful tone in Wes' voice before he answered his friends' question.

"If you want it, then yes. We would have to construct the morpher and your weapons. It would take some time but if you're up to joining the good fight, then by all means. I'm not going to lie…we could use the help."

Wes stood up proudly and let a huge smile spill over his face, "Then count me in!"

Tommy shook hands with his new teammate, then shifted his attention to Kim. "I'm not asking you to take up the mantle again. I know you have a life to live and I'll understand completely if you walk away from this."

To Tommy's surprise and alarm, he saw tears in Kim's eyes. "Zordon would be so proud of what you are doing Tommy. I'm proud of what you're doing." Kim approached Tommy and looked into his eyes, "I walked out on you and Zordon once before, this is my chance to make up for that. Count me in."

Tommy gave Kim a brief supporting hug while saying, "We've never held that against you Kim. But I'm thankful that I'll have the Earth's original pink ranger by my side again." Tommy let Kim go and pulled back to see the tears residing.

Ethan's voice broke the silence that hasettled in on the group of rangers. "This is so cool, two new rangers. Mesogog is in for a surprise the next time he goes against us."

Kira joined in as well, "I'm not gonna lie, it'll be weird having two new rangers, just because I'm used to the four, but Ethan's right, it is pretty cool."

Conner, who had been silent for almost the entire time, stepped up to both Kim and Wes and reached out his hand to the both of them. "Welcome to the team."

Tommy shared a smile with Haley, before walking up to her. "Looks like we got our team of six, Hales. What do you think?"

Haley looked up at Tommy and then turned towards the computer console. "I think I've got some work to do."

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Zeltrax walked hastily into the lab. He was very eager to get started on repairing the cyborg he had found, but hadn't had the time. But now that his master had left for the time being he was assured at least a few hours to himself to work. Upon approaching the table, Zeltrax noticed that the cyborg was no longer lying on the workbench where he had left it. Anger began to course through him at the thought of Elsa tossing it away. Zeltraz swiftly turned on his right foot to head to Elsa's chambers, but was stopped dead in his tracks the moment he turned around. "How did you…What are you?"

The figure that stood before him, answered in a very human voice, "I am supposed to be an automated mechanical robot. A robot unable to function on its own, a robot that does not posses free will. Only I am not a robot, I am very much human inside a robots body. Some used to refer to me as Dr. Louis Ferricks, but you can call me Frax."

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_REVIEW!!!!_


	7. A Deal With The Devil

_Disclaimer: Don't own the rangers._

Wes and Kim stood beside each other in Tommy's basement, otherwise known as the Dino Lair. It was a late Friday night and Haley and Tommy had been working on building the morphers all week; and now it was time to try them out. Haley stood up out of her chair and walked over to Kimberly, handing her a morpher.

"Okay, before we run the test, I need to make sure you know a few things about your morpher. Kim you'll be the Pink Quetzal Dino Ranger. Your uniform will look identical to Kira's only with a different helmet and color. You'll have the normal call, 'dino thunder power up,' and you'll also wield the Quetzal Bow."

Kim smiled brightly. "Just like old times."

"Thought you'd like that. Remember, like the other rangers, you'll also have the standard Thundermax Saber/Blaster. I did some tests on your gem and it turns out your power is telekinesis. Use it wisely, because it draws energy from your gem. I'm still working on your zord and raptor rider, but other than that, you're now the Pink Ranger."

Kim's eyes filled with tears as she strapped the morpher to her wrist. "Thank you so much Haley. Tommy. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

Tommy smiled in response, while Haley replied with a 'no problem'. Tommy's attention then shifted over to Wes. "Well, Wes as you already discovered, your gem power is camouflage, the ability to blend in to your surroundings. Now, your gem is slightly different from the others, more powerful. Your suit was designed differently from the others. Apparently Mesogog already made some changes to the morphing sequence before you got a hold of it. Another difference is the morphing call; unlike ours it will be 'white ranger, dino power.'

"Why are the morphing calls different?"

"When we tried the normal call, the morpher didn't register it. But no worries, it will still respond to your voice. When you morph you will become the White Drago Dino Ranger and your weapon will be the Drago Dagger. Like me, you won't have the standard weapon, but your dagger is very powerful, it's all you'll need."

"Drago ranger, huh? Sounds awfully familiar." Kim's voice got the attention of Tommy.

"Consider it a tribute to my earlier times in uniform." Tommy's eyes switched back to Wes as he continued to talk. "Are you ready for this Wes?"

"I was born ready."

"Alright then you two, its morphin' time."

Kim and Tommy shared a knowing smile at Tommy's words before taking her place next to Wes in the middle of the lab. "Ready?"

Wes lifted his wrist, "Ready."

"Dino Thunder, Power Up!"

"White Ranger, Dino Power!"

The computer came alive with data that suddenly began to pour in, but Tommy and Haley only noticed the three words that were blinking on the screen.

TEST RUN SUCCESSFUL

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Despite the addition of two new rangers, it had been a relatively calm week for the teens. There had been only a few encounters with the tyrannodrones, but that was the most action they had seen. Kira had finished her set a few hours ago, but didn't want to leave just yet. So Conner, Ethan, and Kira sat at their usual table at Haley's Cyberspace Café.

"I still can't believe we have two new teammates."

Conner reluctantly switched his view from the gorgeous girl that had been walking by, to Ethan "What? Did you say something Eth?"

"Wow. Is your attention ever on anything else? Geez, Kira's right, you are a -" Ethan turned to his friend in yellow for some support, only to find her completely oblivious to the conversation. Following the direction of her gaze, Ethan found what Kira was so engrossed in. "Are you kidding me, you too? I thought you were better than that."

Curious as to what Ethan was getting at, Conner too followed Kira's gaze to a bus boy that was cleaning three tables away. He had recognized him from school, but he had never seen him here before. Conner bent his head low and softly whispered to Kira "I know who Kira likes."

Kira snapped out of her daze and glared at Conner, angrily."Shove it, Conner. I don't like him, I'm just curious. I've seen him at school, I just can't place his name."

Ethan finally having got over his initial shock provided the yellow ranger with an answer. "His name is Trent. He's in my Calculus class."

Kira glanced back at the Hispanic boy. "Yeah. Trent Fernandez, now I remember. He's in Conner's Spanish class."

"He's in my class? How did you know that? Why didn't I know that?"

"You'd be surprised what you would know if you stayed awake in class, Conner."

Ethan rolled his eyes at his opposites banter and decided to try again with his initial conversation. "Can we get back to my question? Wes and Kim…anyone have any comments on the two?"

Kira took a long sip of her strawberry-banana smoothie before answering Ethan's question. "I think it's great. I'm so over being the only girl on the team."

Conner mindlessly began to open a straw that had been lying on the table while sharing his thoughts. "I'm glad that we have the extra man power, but I can't help but feeling a little insulted. The way Dr. O said 'we could use the help'. We haven't lost a battle yet."

"I don't think that's what Dr.O was getting at Conner, your being way too…hey get your own drink!" Kira glared at Conner as he swallowed the thick liquid and pulled the straw out of her glass.

Ethan watched as Conner got up from the table to order a drink and turned his attention to the girl next to him. "Well I'm excited about Mr. Collins and Kim joining the team, although it will be kind of awkward for both you and Conner."

"Why would it be awkward?" Asked Conner, who had returned to the table with a soda in his hand.

"He is our Spanish teacher."

"We do fine with Dr.O in geology, why would this be any different?"

Kira nodded her head in understanding, "Your right. Maybe it won't be awkward at all."

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Zeltrax silently walked through the double doors of the storage room and quickly began to search the room for Frax. He had kept the robot's resurrection to himself the entire week but felt it was time to make Frax's presence known to his master. He had learned a great deal of things about Frax and his past. Or maybe future would be appropriate in his case. He knew all about Frax being from the future and about his role in the final battle, but anything past that, the gold metallic robot kept to himself. Finally spotting him off in the corner, Zeltrax quickly approached him.

"Frax. It is time that I introduce you to master."

"Your master. Not mine. I will not be controlled by another tyrant."

"We'll see. Now let's go"

Frax stood up and began to follow Zeltrax through the storage room and out into the hallways of the lair. Zeltrax was surprised at how defiant the robot had sounded back in the room. He wondered if it was a mistake to have revived the robot, but changed his thought immediately when he remembered all of the knowledge this one robot held. With Frax fighting on their side, the destruction of the rangers was sure to come quickly.

Entering the main lab, Zeltrax saw that his master stood in the middle of the room with his arms folded behind his back, and Elsa standing beside him. Zeltrax carefully approached his master and signaled for Frax to enter. Zeltrax watched as Elsa's face lit up with surprise, but it died down the moment she realized Zeltrax was watching. His master on the other hand did not look at all impressed.

"Why, Zeltrax, do you insist on bringing this piece of garbage in front of me?"

Before Zeltrax could respond to his master's question, he heard Frax beat him to the punch. "My name is Frax and I assure you, the only garbage in this room I see is you and this pathetic excuse you call a lair."

Mesogog look angered at first but then calmly approached Frax. "Well whatever repairs are needed in my lab, I'll make sure the scrap metal I use comes from your body."

"Enough. I'm not here to trade insults with you, Mesogog." Zeltrax watched as his master sent a look of inquiry at Frax. "Yes, I do know your name. You'd be surprised what you can hear through an air vent. But my reason for meeting you is simple. I came here to make you a deal."

"What makes you think you have something to offer?"

"According to Zeltrax, you're looking for a power source that's capable of fueling your little experiment. And you also need something powerful enough to take out the rangers. And seeing as how you've lost your last two chances, you need another source. That source is me. But I come at a price."

"Do I dare ask?"

"I want my own lab, for my research. And you provide me with whatever it is I request."

"What will I get in return?"

"I will assist you in taking down the rangers."

Zeltrax watched as his master pondered over this for a few seconds, and was surprised when his master replied, "Deal."

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As soon as Wes opened the front door to his house, he made a beeline straight for the telephone. He couldn't wait to tell Eric about his new powers, and how amazing it felt to be back in uniform. Picking up the phone, he quickly punched in the numbers before pressing it to his ear and waiting for the line to pick up. Unfortunately, it went to voicemail, so Wes settled for leaving a brief message and then placed the phone back on the charger. It was a Friday night, Eric was probably out with a few of the guardians. Wes' thoughts drifted back to him morphing in Tommy's basement. Feeling that sensation again, it was like something had clicked back into place. He glanced down at his left wrist to see the silver bracelet holding his gem safely inside it. He couldn't wait to put his powers to the test.

Wes was snapped out of his thoughts as his phone started to ring. Thinking it was Eric; Wes reached for the phone and hit the talk button. "Hello."

"Hey, it's Tommy. I'm headed to Haley's café to meet the kids and wanted to know if you would like to join me."

"Yea sounds great. Where's it at?"

"It's at the corner of Main and Preston. You'll have to park in front of Pier 1, its surrounded by other stores, so there's no parking directly in front of it. It'll be right around the corner."

"What's the name?"

"Haley's Cyberspace Café."

"Alright, I'll meet you there then." With that said Wes hung up the phone, grabbed his keys and headed out the door.

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Kim leaned her arm against the window as she waited for the red light to turn green. She was on her way to Haley's Café after getting a call from Tommy asking if she could meet him and the others there. Kim had met the other three rangers before but had never gotten a chance to actually talk to them. Once the light turned green Kim sat up and started driving towards her destination. Earlier that week, Ryan had once again had to leave town for another away game. Kim was sad to see him go again three days after just getting home, but that was his job. And thinking of jobs, the first week of her job had been great. She was teaching girls ages 13-15, which was a great age for her to teach. In Florida, she had trained girls 17-19 and she enjoyed the change in pace. Kim had finally reached the Pier 1 Tommy had said to park in front of and found a spot off in the corner. As she got out of her car, she saw a white truck pull up about three spaces from her and was surprised to see Wes come out from the drivers' side,

"How long have you had your truck?" She asked as the both of them exchanged a smile and began the walk to the café.

"A little over a month. Why?"

"It's just funny how you drove a white truck before putting on a certain white uniform."

Wes laughed at that sudden realization and quickly turned his head back in the direction of his car. "I guess it was fate then."

Wes opened the door for Kim and then walked in behind her as they slipped into the café. Glancing around, she found their companions sitting at a table in the corner of the café.

"Hey, bout time you guys got here." Kim couldn't help but notice how nice Tommy looked in his black button-up shirt and cargo pants. They both fit him well. Very well

"Sorry, we don't all disregard the speed limit." Wes' voice brought Kim out of her slight trance.

Tommy grinned at Wes' comment, "I used to be a race car driver, can't help it."

Kim noticed how Conner, Ethan, and Kira just watched their teachers go back and forth with their light banter and decided to engage in conversation with them. "Hey guys. What's up?"

Kira was the first to respond, "Can I just say that it is so relieving to have another girl on this team. I've been drowning in a sea of testosterone and I'm in definite need of some saving."

Kim laughed and smiled at Kira. She was definitely going to like this girl.

Tommy and Wes joined them and in an instant a conversation was struck up between the group of rangers.

"Hey, Mr. Collins, does this mean you'll pass me in Spanish now that were teammates and all?"

"Not on your life, Conner. You'll get the grade you earn. And please, all of you call me Wes. is my dad, and outside of school, it sounds really weird."

"That goes for me too. I don't want to be referred to as Miss Hart, makes me sound old."

"Cool." Kim watched as Ethan turned his head in Tommy's direction. "So can we call you To-"

"Don't even finish that sentenced Ethan. I am old, and I still expect to be acknowledged as Dr. Oliver."

Ethan pouted his lips as he turned his head away from Tommy. "Whatever you say Dr.O."

The table shared a laugh and continued on with another topic of conversation. Kim looked around at each of the faces surrounding her and smiled. It reminded her of the old days, when the gang would meet at the Youth Center on the weekends. After about another hour of talking and joking, the group of six decided to turn in and head home. They said their goodnights to Haley, headed out the front door and made their way to cars.

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"My master is not someone you want to displease. Next time, you need to show a little more respect."

Frax ignored Zeltrax as he sorted through the destruction and mess that used to be his lab. After talking to Mesogog, he decided to go back to Silver Hills and try and see if he could retrieve any salvaged parts or machinery that he had kept in his old hideout. Ransik and his cyclobots had made a huge mess of the lab, and much of what was in there was completely destroyed. All Frax could recover was a bunch of cyclobot parts, a damaged chrono-communicator, and the most important one of them all, the final product of one of his experiments. It wasn't much but it would do. Now all he needed was to get a hold of a friend; a friend from the future.

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_A/N: Okay guys I'm back. It would seem fate doesn't want me to finish this story. There have been so many things that have prevented me from posting, I'm not even going to try and explain them. But this story is getting finished. So be on the lookout. And just to make it up to my readers, I'm posting three chapters this weekend, so lookout for them! And please…REVIEW!!!_


	8. First Encounters

_Disclaimer: Don't own the rangers._

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It was Sunday afternoon, and the rangers were gathered in the woods behind Tommy Oliver's house. When the rangers had met at Haley's only two days before, Tommy had suggested that they all start training together, in order to bond better as a team. Today was the first day of training, so here they were sparring against each other in the backyard, old rangers versus the new rangers. It was decided that Kim would take on Conner, Tommy chose to battle with Ethan, and Wes would spar with Kira.

"Okay Conner, let me see what you got." Taking that as an invitation, Conner rushed forward, launching a few poorly thrown punches towards Kim. She expertly dodged every one, until she found an opening and threw a swift kick into Conner's midsection. Once Conner regained his balance, he attempted to hit Kim with a spin kick, but before it could land, she rolled underneath his kicking leg, and swept his other leg from underneath him. Conner smacked the mat hard, but to Kim's surprise, bounced right back up. "You're a good fighter Conner. But have patience. Until you get to know your opponent, keep your moves effective, but basic." Conner nodded his head in understanding and prepared to attack again.

Some feet away, Ethan was leaning back avoiding one of Tommy's snap kicks to his chest. As soon as Ethan straightened up he quickly moved to the right, side stepping Tommy's punch. Going on the offensive, Ethan launched a right jab to Tommy's side, only to have his arm grabbed and then his body flipped over, slamming onto the mat. Noticing that Tommy was still in close proximity and holding his arm, Ethan pulled Tommy forward and used his feet to catapult him over his body. Tommy landed on his back a few feet behind him. "Nice move Ethan."

As soon as the both of them were back on their feet, Ethan once again began to approach Tommy, but was stunned when Tommy flipped over him, and on his way down, kicked Ethan in the back, sending him face first into the ground. "Likewise, Dr.O."

Kira launched spin kick after spin kick, until finally one landed on Wes' right shoulder, driving him back a few feet. Seeing an opportunity, Kira dropped down to the floor and swept Wes' feet from under him. To Kira's surprise, as soon as Wes hit the floor, he swept her feet from underneath her as well. Simultaneously, they both rolled away from one another, and then quickly stood up. Wes began to circle around Kira, and when he saw his opportunity, threw a few punches in Kira's direction. As he expected, she stepped a few feet back from him, standing near the edge of the mat. Wes back flipped to the opposite edge of the mat and glanced back at Kira, who had a grin on her face.

"You're not afraid of me are you?"

Wes smiled before answering, "Always mind your surroundings." With that said, he tugged the end of the mat, sending the yellow ranger to the ground on her back.

A loud chime broke the six rangers out of their concentration, and instantly they all darted inside of Tommy's house and down into the Dino Lair. Ethan was the first to react to the images that were showing on the screen. "Zeltrax and his goons are attacking the city."

Taking the position of leader, Conner stepped back into the middle of the floor, "Then let's go and greet them." Conner raised his left wrist to his chest, waiting for the five other to follow suit. "Ready?"

"Ready." Five voices responded.

"DINO THUNDER, POWER UP!"

"WHITE RANGER, DINO POWER!"

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As soon as the rangers arrived on the scene, the six of them immediately spread out. Conner, Wes, Kim, and Kira started to take out the surrounding tyrannodrones, while Tommy and Ethan confronted Zeltrax.

"TYRANNO STAFF!" One by one, Conner took out every approaching drone with his staff, as he expertly spun it around his back before striking down another one. As he twirled his staff through his fingers and brought it to his front, a tyrannodrone tried to sneak up on Conner's left. Seeing the approaching drone Conner grabbed his thundermax blaster and took it out with three shots to the chest.

Kira flipped over the first tyrannodrone she came upon then landed, and knocked down with a kick to its midsection. Two more drones came at her, but she easily knocked them down with a kick to the face and an elbow to the back. Seeing more come her, Kira ran towards them, leaped into the air, and yelled, "PTERA GRIPS". Upon landing, she struck three more down with a few quick slashes, and two other drones to her left and right with swipes to their midsection.

Wes and Kim were back to back in a circle of tyrannodrones. Wes bent down as Kim rolled over his back a knocked out a drone with a kick and a punch to its chest. Wes ducked as one of the drones threw a punch at his head, then reached out to grab its arm, yanked it forward and drew his knee into the drone's chest. Behind him, Kim performed several back flips as a tyrannodrone began to chase her. As soon as the drone went to tackle her, Kim landed into a split, sending the drone over her head and crashing into the ground.

"Wes," Kim called over her shoulder as she kicked down another drone, "how bout we take things up a notch?"

Punching down a drone and elbowing another in the face as it approached him from behind, Wes called out, "Couldn't agree with you more. DRAGO DAGGER!"

"QUETZAL BOW!"

On the other side of the park, together Tommy and Ethan kicked Zeltrax into the wall, then both threw punches that sent Zeltrax rolling onto the ground. Pulling out his sword, Zeltrax threw out a blast that sent Tommy and Ethan flying back. As Ethan rolled over onto his back, Zeltrax jumped right in front of him and swung his sword down towards Ethan. "TRICERA SHIELD!" The sound of metal hitting metal filled the air around the two of them. Before Ethan could push Zeltrax off of him, the cyborg was driven back by a bicycle kick from the black ranger.

"Back off, Zeltrax." Tommy grabbed Ethan up then turned his attention back to his enemy. "I've had enough out of you. BRACHIO STAFF….ENERGY ORB!"

A large explosion sent Zeltrax flying back, damaged and exhausted. Slowly getting up, Zeltrax noticed that all six rangers were now standing several feet in front of him.

"Had enough?"

"Don't get too cocky rangers. I still have a surprise up my sleeve." At his words a huge monster came into a view above the city skyline, drawing the rangers' attention to it.

Ethan stepped forward towards Zeltrax, "That's hardly a surprise if it's always your last resort every time you lose a battle." With that said Ethan turned his head towards Tommy. "Dr.O."

"BRACHIO ZORD!" The ground began to rumble as a giant black and gold brachiosaurus made its way down the street. Stopping near the six rangers, three compartments opened up letting out a red tyrannosaurus, a blue triceratops, and a yellow pterodactyl. "Alright, guys, take it away."

Conner, Ethan, and Kira soared off into the air and disappeared into their individual zords. Kim and Wes came up on Tommy's left side, as the rangers assembled the megazord.

"Those are awesome!" Wes' voice was full of excitement. "I've never seen anything like them."

"Tommy they're amazing. Just like our old zords." Kim's voice was of pure awe as she continued to glance up at the megazord.

The three veteran rangers watched as the megazord and Zeltrax's monster went at it for what only felt like seconds. The rangers managed to get the upper hand and destroyed it with a finishing move.

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"Rough day?" Frax casually asked Zeltrax as he entered the lab with sparks and smoking coming off from his body. All Frax got as an answer was a loud growl. "I assume that the rangers became too much to handle. Well, lucky for you, they will still see defeat today. I'm going to make my presence known to these rangers."

Zeltrax spun to look at Frax."You can't do that. Master doesn't-"

"I will do what I want." And before Zeltrax could stop him, Frax disappeared from the room.

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Conner, Ethan, and Kira joined the other rangers on the ground as soon as they had placed their zords back into Tommy's carrier zord.

"That was amazing. I can't wait 'til I get one of those!" Before any of the other rangers could respond to Wes' excited yelp, they were all hit with a series of blast that sent them flying into the ground.

"And here I thought destroying you would be a challenge."

Wes paused from trying to get up, as that voice began to register in his head. He had thought he had saw him back in that glass cylinder when Kim and him were in that lab, in Mesogog's lair, but had simply told himself it was his mind playing tricks on him. But that voice, he knew that voice. The name slipped off his lips in a small whisper. "Frax?"

"You know that guy?" Ethan's voice brought Wes out of his frame of thought.

Tommy staggered a few feet forwards to face Frax. "Who are you?"

"I'm the villain who will be responsible for destroying you, but you can call me Frax." To emphasize his point, Frax sent another blast towards the rangers.

"Now it's our turn!" Conner pulled himself up, along with Ethan, Kim and Kira, and the four of them brought together their weapons. "Z-REX BLASTER…FIRE"

"ENERGY ORB!"

"LASER ARROWS!"

Before any of them could comprehend what had happened, their blasts ricocheted off of Frax and headed straight back to them. The explosion sent the six rangers flying in opposite directions of the street, wounded and drained of energy.

Frax approached them once more, "I'll finish destroying you when you can go down with a bit more dignity," and then he vanished into thin air.

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Back at the Dino Lair, the six demorphed rangers were gathered in a circle around the computer as Haley tried to figure out what had just happened. But why they waited for Haley to come up with some answers, five of the ranger turned their heads to Wes, waiting for an explanation. "So?" Asked Ethan.

Wes took a deep sigh and ran his hand through his hair before he began to talk. "I don't even know where to start." He stood up and started pacing around the lair. "When I was a ranger back in Silver Hills, Frax was our big bad's henchmen. At least until Frax broke away from Ransik and decided to start to his own war. I left the team right after he broke away, so I don't know all the details. But during the final battle, Frax had built this machine called Doomtron. It was supposed to destroy the rangers, Ransik and the city. By this time, Frax had already gone insane. Anyway, before Frax could use it, Ransik captured him and forced him to pilot Doomtron. He was destroyed when the rangers defeated the Doomtron. Or at least I thought he was."

Conner let that settle in before asking the question that was on his mind. "Is this robot from the future?"

"Yeah. But he wasn't taken back there. The Doomtron exploded when it was destroyed. Frax was inside. You do the math."

"Has he always been that powerful?" Kira asked her question with a concerned gaze towards Wes.

"I only fought him a few times and they weren't really battles. Just exchanges of blaster fire. But from those encounters I can tell you he wasn't that strong. Something must have happened to make him so powerful. I mean…they way he reflected our blast like that…not even Ransik could do that."

"I think I know." Tommy stood up from his chair and walked over to stand near Wes. "Besides being a very intelligent scientist, one of Mesogog's many talents was robotics. He's the one who altered the tyrannnodrones to be so vicious. And I know he's the one that created Zeltrax."

Kim finally decided to join in on the conversation. "But how would he have known where to look for Frax?"

"I think I can help with that." Haley's voice grabbed the attention of all six rangers as they crowded near her by the computer. "I was scanning the records of all the past scans we've done these past few weeks. Look what I found." The rangers watch the screen as an old scan readout flashed its way across the screen. "You see those two dots blinking…those are pink and white dino gems, from when we first located them. It was the day I sent the rangers to stop Elsa from picking them up. Now if you zoom out of this area, and make a wider search…" Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she pulled up a second readout. "In the top left hand corner, do you see that spike in energy? If you input those coordinates using a physical map…" Haley pulled up a California physical map up on the left screen.

"The spike is coming from downtown Silver Hills," Wes finished.

"Yup" Haley spun around in her chair to look at the six rangers. "I bet Mesogog picked it up before we did. And as a result, found Frax, or what was left of him, and put him back together, hoping the robots power would give him an upper hand."

Conner looked at his fellow rangers and softly replied, "Well, looks like he got what he wanted."

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Frax opened the communications line and sent out the appropriate signals he would need in order to get a hold of her. He waited for a few seconds before her face appeared between the two metal rods.

"Is it time?" She asked.

"Yes. Do you know what you're doing? I don't want any mistakes."

"We're all prepared here. We just need to find the perfect time to attack. Security has been extremely tight ever since Ransik escaped from this time."

"Do whatever it takes." Frax cut the connection and quickly hid the chrono-communicator back in the wall. _Soon his reinforcements would be here…and his plan could begin to be put into action._

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_A/N: Okay so I was re-watching some of the time force episodes I haven't seen in a while and I realized that time force was a bad season to air in 2001. First off, there's a scene in one of the episodes where a helicopter crashes into a building…not good. To make matters worse, when we first see the Time Shadow megazord, it's standing on top of two buildings that look a lot like the twin towers. And the weirdest part is that these episodes were broadcast months before 9/11. For some reason just thought I would mention that. So here's the second chapter of the three that I promised you this weekend. Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter, you guys are amazing! Let me know what you think of Chapter 8. Don't forget to REVIEW!! _


	9. Force From The Future

_Disclaimer: I don't own the rangers…yadda yadda yadda_

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Katie Walker threw her body on the sofa when she arrived home from her shift. It had been a long day, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Every since she had been promoted, her job had become difficult and chaotic. It wasn't easy training the rookie cadets, but she had to admit that she always felt proud when she watched them receive their badges. Turning on her side, Katie's gaze shifted to the frame that rested on the living room table. The picture had been taken nearly eight months ago on a beach, in the year 2001. It was a picture of her second family, a family she missed very much. The first person her eyes came across in the photograph was Trip.

She hadn't seen Trip in almost two months. His job had kept him extremely busy and locked away in a room monitoring the time stream. As much as she hated him working so much, she was also glad that Time Force had promoted and chosen him to be in charge of the team that was assigned the delicate task. If anyone could do that job, it was Trip. She missed Trip. His optimism and child-like view of everything around him was something that she had always enjoyed and admired. She hadn't realized how vital it was to her everyday life in a world that could sometimes be very cruel.

Standing next to Trip in the photograph, acting as big brother, was Lucas Kendall. Katie chuckled as she thought about her good friend Lucas. Lucas was the only person she saw on a daily basis, and she was extremely thankful for it. She and Lucas were the only two of the rangers who had been stationed at the Time Force Academy. They didn't teach any classes together, but they did see each other everyday for lunch and occasionally would have joint classes. Lucas hadn't changed a bit from the strong, dependable man he had always been. He still messed with her to no end, he still raced cars, and he still had a mirror permanently attached to his hand. That was good old Lucas.

As her eyes reached the next person, her eyes and smile became sad. She saw Jen every now and then, when she would stop by the Academy to say 'hi' or when she would meet her to for coffee or dinner. In fact, she had just seen Jen four days ago when Jen asked her to go shopping with her. They still had fun when they were together, but she couldn't help but always see the sad look behind Jen's eyes. Jen hadn't been the same every since they had gotten back from the past. At first she had thought it was because Jen had missed Wes. Just like Lucas, Trip, and her had missed Wes. But she later found out that it was more than that. Right before they had left to go home, Wes had told Jen he loved her. She couldn't even imagine what that must have been like for Jen. But Jen was strong; she would make it through whatever it was she was going through. Besides, it wasn't as if Jen didn't have anything to take her mind off of him. As of right now, Jen was one of two rangers that were still active. Crime had gone down tremendously ever since the rangers had returned, but Time Force was still cautious. Two rangers was all the city needed right now.

Speaking of active rangers…that brought her next thought to Alex. There wasn't much to say about him. He was business as usual. They had never really bonded with him, back when they were in 2001. But he was still part of the team. Still part of the family. Or at least she thought so. She wasn't sure if everyone felt that way. To this day Lucas hasn't completely forgiven Alex for taking the morpher away from Wes. While he understood Alex's reason, he still hadn't liked it. None of them had liked it. Lying to Wes wasn't what she wanted to do, but his safety had come first. It was the one thing that they had all agreed on. So in the end they relieved Wes of his duty as red ranger. And then there was Jen. She and Alex's relationship had become very rocky when he showed up in 2001, and it had stayed that way all up until six months ago, when they decided to call it quits. Alex had been furious. He had been convinced it was because of Wes, and maybe part of it was. But Jen's reason had been that they had both changed, and the people they had become were entirely different from the people they were. They still worked together as partners. And their relationship was purely professional. But other than work, they stayed away from each other.

Still glancing at the picture, Katie smiled she came to the last person in the photo: Wes. She had thought about him often these last eight months. Always wondering what he was doing, or if he was happy. Wondering what had become if the former Red ranger. Of course she could just look him up in the archives, but all four of the rangers had vowed to never do that. Mostly out of fear of what they would find out. Her eyes closed as she remembered all the good times she had had with the man from 2001. He had taught her so much in the time she was there and she cherished those lessons and moments.

Realizing that she was dozing off, Katie lifted herself from the sofa and headed into her bedroom. It had indeed been a long day, and for some odd reason, she had a feeling that she was going to need the rest.

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_THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! ALL RANGERS REPORT TO THE VEHICLE BAY! REPEAT ALL RANGERS REPORT TO THE VEHICLE BAY!_

Jen leaped out of bed and began throwing off her pajamas once she had fully taken in the sudden announcement. Only she and Alex were called when the rangers were needed, and the fact that all five rangers had been summoned meant that something was seriously wrong. After commanding her closet door to open, she yanked out her uniform and hastily threw it on. Once she was fully dressed she grabbed her morpher off of her nightstand and headed out the door.

On the way to the loading bay, Jen couldn't help but notice how every working time force officer flooded the halls of headquarters. Some faces had a look of panic while others had on looks of sheer determination. She hadn't seen a commotion like this ever since the night Ransik had attacked the warehouse; the night when they had first arrested him. Turning the corner, Jen fell into step right next to her partner, as they both approached the door to the loading bay.

"Alex, what's going on?"

"There's been an attack at the Academy."

"The Academy?" A look of confusion spread across Jen's face, "Why would someone attack the academy?"

"Don't know, but either way we need to get there fast. The cadets aren't trained enough to hold out a full fledged attack."

As Jen and Alex approached their vectorcycles, the sound of three voices yelling for them to wait caught their ears. Jen whipped her head around to see Lucas, Trip, and Katie running side by side at full speed towards her.

"Trip!" Jen quickly embraced Trip as soon as he approached her. She hadn't seen him in almost four months. It had been a long time.

"Now is not the time for a reunion, Jennifer." At Alex's words, Jen broke away from Trip and mounted her vectorcycle.

Together, for the first time in eight months, the Time Force rangers sped off towards the Academy.

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Approaching the Aacademy, Alex could tell that a lot of damage had already been done. Part of the west wing was up in flames and several of the cadets attending the school were either unconscious or receiving medical attention for their industries. Turning his head towards the building, he noticed something both surprising and familiar about the attackers. "Cyclobots."

"What?" Katie's voice floated over to his ear as she asked the question. "But I thought that…"

Alex cut her off, "I did too." Frax had been the creator and builder of the cyclobots. Once he had been destroyed and every walking cyclobot had been annihilated, they had thought that they had seen the last of the cyclobots. _Apparently not_, Alex thought to himself. "Either way, we have to stop them, lets ranger up." Jumping off his vectorcycle and lining up a few feet away, Alex looked back to make sure that the others were standing with him. Satisfied that they were he lifted up and his wrist and moved his hands through the familiar motions. "TIME FOR TIME FORCE!" Four more chants followed behind him.

"TIME FOR TIME FORCE!"

Together him and the other four rangers rushed to the building and began taking out cyclobot after cyclobot. After what felt like hours, Alex began to realize that something strange about the cyclobots. First off, they weren't even attacking the rangers, the rangers were attacking them. And secondly, they didn't seem to have any real mission or purpose. They were just throwing things around the rooms and firing their blasters at random targets. It was then that Alex realized what their purpose was. "Get back to headquarters!" He shouted. "It's a distraction, get back to headquarters!" It made sense now that he thought about. Almost every active Time Force officer was standing outside the building, and the rangers and been busy trying to fend these guys off. It had left Time Force Headquarters vulnerable and wide open for an attack.

It was when the rangers were back on their vectorcycles and heading back to headquarters when Alex heard Trip's voice come over the helmet communicator, "Look!" Alex looked up to see what had caught Trip's eye and immediately saw what he was looking at. A time ship had been loaded onto the flight platform and was awaiting for take off. "Come on, we have to stop it!" Alex revved his engine and took off at full speed towards the platform. But it was too late. Alex stopped his vectorcycle as he watched in horror the Transformer megazord launch the rogue time ship through the time gate. "We're too late." The statement came off his lips full of disappointment and anger.

"Come on we're going after them!" Jen's voice broke through his thoughts as she and the other rangers flew past him towards the loading bay.

Alex spoke into his communicator as he tried to talk some sense in to Jen. "Jen, we don't have any clearance or authority to go after them. We have to talk Logan!"

"That didn't stop me last time, and it's certainly not going to stop me now!" That was the only answer he got in respond as they approached the loading bay. One by one they leaped onto the platform and ran to the closest time ship they could find. Lucas quickly found one and opened the doors to let everyone in. Alex followed, but he didn't plan on leaving. A bright light consumed the ship as the four officers demorphed. Alex followed suit.

Trip's voice rang out as each of them took a seat around the control panel. "Circuit, you know what to do."

Alex watched as the blue owl flew from out of Trip's backpack, that amazingly, he still carried and landed in the middle of the control panel. Done with humoring them, Alex stepped in front of the pilot's seat and made his final attempt to stop them.

"I'm ordering you…all of you," Glaring at Jen, "Stand do-" A dull pain suddenly consumed Alex's head and before he could register what had happened, he quickly fell into unconsciousness.

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_A/N: Sorry that this chapter was posted so late, it was Father's Day so I had to spend some time with my dad before barricading myself in my room. Thanks to all who reviewed last chapter, I'm looking forward to what you guys have to say about this chapter. To all you others hope you enjoy the chapter and as always REVIEW! _


	10. More Than Just A Monday

_Disclaimer: Don't own the rangers._

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Trudging through the wet grass of the school's lawn in his wrinkled clothes and muddy shoes, Conner concluded that this was _the_ worst Monday morning ever. It was amazing to him just how stressful life could get in just sixty minutes. Conner let loose a heavy sigh as he replayed the morning events in his head.

He should have known it was going to be a bad morning when his alarm, for some odd reason, didn't go off. If it wasn't for his mother's usual morning nagging, he would still be lying in bed. Yesterday's beating from Frax had taken a toll on his body, and as soon as he had gotten home, he threw his body in his bed. Because of his early retirement to bed, he never got a chance to wash his dirty clothes, which resulted in nothing to wear this morning. He had been forced to wear the cleanest dirty laundry he had; and of course it was his black jeans and red and white shirt that were at the very bottom of the hamper. All bunched up and in a serious need of ironing. But because of waking up late, he hadn't had the time.

To make matters worse, when Conner had gotten into his car he suddenly remembered why he had set the alarm clock earlier than usual. He needed to stop at a gas station to put gas in his car, before going to school. But the alarm clock didn't go off, so as a result Conner had no gas in his car. And his mom had just left to go to work. It was then Conner came up with his not-so-bright idea. Dr.O had told all of them not to use their powers for personal use, but this had been an emergency, so Conner took off for Reefside at lightning speed. It was when he reached the parking lot that he realized how dumb that idea had been.

Looking at his pants, Conner sighed again as he tried to kick off as much dried mud as possible. As he entered the side doors to the school the final bell rang, signifying that first period had started. _Great and now I'm late. _

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Kim considered herself a very patient and calm person, but the two girls before her were bringing all that to an end. They hadn't stopped complaining or arguing since they first came in for class. What put Kimberly in an even bitter mood was the fact that she had to get out of bed at 7:00am on Monday morning so that two twin 14-year old girls could get in "a little more practice." These girls should have been at school, enjoying the perks of being a teenager. Instead, their over-controlling mother pulls them out of school, and decides to home school them, "that way there was more time spent training." Kim was snapped out of her thoughts as the two girls whining penetrated her ears.

"I don't want to do this anymore. Can we please do something more challenging, like getting on the high beam?" Addison, the younger of the two, asked.

Mackenzie, the more experienced sister, added to her sister's question, "Yea, we already know how to do the routine on the low beam. It's getting boring."

Kim had reached the end of her wits. "That's enough both of you. If I thought the two of you were ready for the high beam, then I would've have put you on. But you're not. Neither of you are ready. When you can master this routine on the low beam and be able to do it three times in a row, without a single flaw, then I'll _think_ about putting you on the high beam. But until then, you'll stay on the low beam."

"Donna Kelly's girls are already on the high beam and they're younger than us!"

Kim turned towards Addison, "Donna Kelly also has the highest injury list in the state of California." Kim calmed herself as she took in a deep breath. "Look, you two, I know what it feels like to get impatient and want to be able to reach your potential. And I also know what it's like to get too overconfident. Trust me when I tell you that if you move at a slow pace and take the time to really get to learn this routine, you'll be able to do it with your eyes closed." Looks of horror took over the girls faces, Kim laughed. "Not that you're going to have to do that, it's just a figure of speech."

Smiling at both girls, Kim leaped onto the low beam and turned to look at both girls, "Now let me show you how this is really done."

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"When I call your name, please come forward and place your paper on the table in the front of the room. Remember this is worth 25 of your grade, so even if you don't have your final copy, you had better turn something in."

Ethan groaned and threw his hands to his face. This was the worst day ever. He knew being so technologically dependent would come back to bite him someday. And today was that day. He had written his English paper weeks ago when it had first been assigned, and unlike the rest of the senior class, he had nothing to stress about this past weekend. And yet he would probably be the only senior in Reefside who wouldn't turn in his paper. O' the irony.

Ethan's thoughts went back to second period when he had accidentally dropped his energy drink all over his backpack. He wouldn't have needed the drink had he not been so tired when he woke up. But Sunday had been an exhausting day. Almost being chopped in half and then used as target practice three different times took a lot of energy out of you. When he went to the library to print out his paper during his passing period, he discovered while trying to open his document that his memory stick had been damaged by the sticky substance. He had tried so hard to pull it up, but nothing worked. With the ring of the two-minute bell, Ethan had given up and just headed to class. Maybe he could talk to his teacher, surely he would understand. Ethan had always been an outstanding student. There was no reason for him to assume that Ethan had been lazy and just didn't do it.

At the sound of his name Ethan broke from his thoughts and pulled his head up from the desk. "Yes, Mr. Bush?"

"No paper?"

"No. But I have a really good reason-"

"I'm sorry Mr. James, but a deadline is a deadline."

Ethan groaned and put his head back down on the desk. This was the worst day _ever. _

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Kira tried so hard to keep her eyes open and her head up, but her body wouldn't allow it. As soon as she would open her eyes they would drift shut, as if there were weights lying on them. She knew she shouldn't have stayed up late, especially after that battle yesterday, but she had needed to finish her English essay. She immediately regretted staying up late when she woke up this morning, feeling as if she had only slept for five seconds.

"Kira?" Her head shot up at the sound of her name.

She answered in a very groggy voice, "Yes?"

"Are you okay?" Her teacher's face was full of concern, but he managed to say it light heartedly.

"Fine, just tired." Kira watched the teacher give her a long stare and then turn back to the board to continue the lesson

"I'm sure she is, seeing as how vampires are nocturnal and all." A few people in the class roared out laughing at Cassidy's remark, while most of the class completely ignored it.

Kira glared at Cassidy and prepared to make a response, but the voice of her teacher cut her short, "That's detention for Cassidy, Aaron, Stacy, Brandon, Tina, and Sandra. Cassidy, keep your comments to yourself and the rest of you…grow up."

"But Mr. Coll-" Cassidy was cut off as the bell dismissed the class for lunch. Kira watched as Cassidy stomped out of the classroom.

Kira slowly got up and went to grab her bag, but was stopped by a touch to the shoulder. "Kira, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm okay Mr. Collins…I mean Wes…I…What do I call you? At school I mean?"

Wes chuckled at Kira's confusion. "As long as it's not in the class, or near a teacher, just call me Wes."

"Kira nodded her head and continued on, "I'm just tired. That beating we took really tired me out. Plus, I had to stay up late and finish my English paper."

"Shouldn't you have had that done when it was first assigned?"

Kira groaned. "Are you gonna be a friend or another Dr.O? Cuz to be honest I really don't need another Dr.O."

"I'm sorry, teacher's habit." Kira watched Wes glance down at his watch. "You should probably get going Kira, you don't want to miss lunch."

"I had a really big breakfast, and I'm not actually hungry. Can I just stay in here? I really don't want to go to the cafeteria right now, it's Monday and that's the day Conner eats with his soccer buddies."

"What about Ethan?"

"He has first lunch. If you don't want me to stay I'll go…"

"No, no, that's not it at all. You're more than welcomed to stay, I just thought you might want better company, I'm still pretty tired myself."

"Yea, that beating was brutal. Is that why you're in such a cranky mood?"

Wes glanced at her, confusion written on his face. "What do you mean?"

"Well, normally you let Cassidy and her groupies off with a warning, but today you just gave them all detention. So I think that constitutes as being in a cranky mood."

"Yea, I guess. It's just this whole thing with Frax has got me feeling very uneasy. And I don't like it. To make matters worse, Eric hasn't returned any of my calls. Tried calling my dad but he seems to always be busy." Kira watched as Wes ran his hand through his hair, "I'm just frustrated with this whole situation."

"We all are." Kira turned her back at the sound of the classroom door opening and was not at all surprised to see Dr. O coming through. He, on the other hand was surprised to see her.

"Kira, what are you doing here. Shouldn't you be downstairs, in the cafeteria?"

"Don't have much of an appetite, so I was just going to stay in here. Plus, I'm really tired."

"You too, huh?" She watched as he pulled up a chair to Wes' desk. "I didn't sleep well last night either. And I have no desire to put food in my mouth."

Wes finally jumped back into the conversation, "Same here. This is quickly becoming the worst Monday of my life." The other two nodded in agreement. The yellow, white, and black rangers continued their discussion for another forty minutes before lunch was dismissed and the classes were back in session.

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Frax watched as the timeship pulled out of the timehole and expertly glide over to the cliff side where he had been standing. Patiently, he waited until the slide door opened to reveal a very welcoming and pleasant sight. First off, a few of his cyclobots began coming through the door and were carrying several unmarked cases, which he knew contained his old experiments. Another thing he noticed were the upgrades the cyclobots had received. Their suits were no longer gold, but silver with black helmets. And they no longer carried the cyclo-sabers, but instead carried long staffs with giant blades at the end. He couldn't wait to mass produce these cyclobots and reminded himself he needed to make sure to thank his accomplice for the upgrades.

As if on queue, the person he had sent for came out of the time ships hull, glanced at him, and quickly made their way over to him. They stopped right in front of him, with a large grin on their face. "Louis."

"Petra. Glad to see you could make it. Did you have trouble getting the timeship?"

"No. My plan worked perfectly. By the time the rangers figured it out, we were already launching through the time gate."

"Did you grab everything I asked for?"

"Most of it. Some of the objects we tried to acquire were heavily guarded and we didn't want them to alert the rangers, so we left it behind. But it's nothing we can't make ourselves."

"Excellent. I want you to take the equipment to these coordinates," he handed her the datapad he had arranged for her to use, "then wait for me there. And before you leave, make sure you cloak the ship."

"I'm a smart woman Louis. I know what I'm doing."

"Forgive me, Petra, for I am used to dealing with incompetence." He turned his back and opened one of Mesogog's invisa-portals and went to step in, but before he did so, he glanced back at Petra, "And please, the name is Frax."

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It didn't make sense. Haley leaned back in her chair and began nibbling at the end of her pen for the third time that day. Massive amounts of energy didn't just show up one minute and then disappear the next. Haley looked up from her chair and glanced around the cafe. The cyberspace had pretty much been dead all day, as it usual was on the weekdays, at least until school got out. So she had decided to jump onto her computer and log into the Dino Lair computer systems to see if she could find anything on this Frax guy. For awhile, things had been dull, the only thing keeping her occupied had been the lunch hour rush that came into the café. But that had changed about two hours ago.

She had glanced at her computer, just to make sure she hadn't missed anything when she had been dealing with the lunch crowd, when she saw something very odd. A huge spike in energy had been detected in an area about 45 miles north of Reefside. But just as soon as it had appeared, it disappeared, leaving nothing behind it. Haley had attempted to track whatever it was, but to no avail. Not even five minutes later another energy spike had been detected around Barnes' Cove; which was just ten minutes away from Reefside. She had wanted to alert the rangers, but had decided against it, seeing as how there was no immediate danger.

Now for the last hour, Haley debated on whether or not she was going to tell the rangers about this weird occurrence or not. The rangers, Conner, Ethan, and Kira in particular, had enough to worry about already. She wouldn't bother any of them about this until she was positive this was something to worry about. She glanced up at the time and saw that it read 3:00. Haley logged off the computer, and placed it underneath the counter, as she began to tidy the place up. School was getting out right about now and she wanted to be ready for the crowds full of teenagers that were about to bombard her café.

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It had been a long day and all Kim wanted to do was crawl in a corner and sleep. She had gotten home from work at around five, and was looking forward to getting a few hours rest before she would have to be up again and headed out to see Ryan's game at seven. It was the last home game of the season and she knew he wanted her to be there. But that all changed when in the middle of her nap, her communicator went off. Leave it to Elsa and her latest monster to ruin her evening plans. It had taken awhile to clear the city of tyrannodrones and an even longer time to destroy the monster, but eventually it had gotten done. However, by the time she had made it to the field, the game was nearly over and she had missed Ryan pitch. She hoped that he hadn't noticed her absence in the stands, but by the look he sent her as the team walked into the locker room after the game was over, she knew he had.

Now, she waited outside the player's exit, waiting for Ryan, hoping that he wasn't that upset. She let a yawn out as she leaned against the wall and slowly closed her eyes.

"Glad to know the game didn't bore you." The sarcastic comment caused her to immediately open her eyes, push her body off the wall, and turn her attention to the owner of the voice.

"Ryan, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to miss you, it's just that something came up and I needed to take care of it before heading over here."

She watched as he glanced at her in a suspicious way. "Really? Like what?"

Kim shifted back and forth from her right foot to her left foot as she tried to think of an answer under his gaze. "A girl of mine needed some help on the balance beam before her competition tomorrow morning. I couldn't tell her 'no'."

"That's funny, because when I called your work phone your boss told me you had left at 4:15."

Kim was quick on her feet. "I did leave work at 4:15. I got home at 5, changed clothes and then met Stacy at the fitness center. They have a gymnastics room there. We practiced for awhile, and then from there, I came here. Anything else you want to know, Sherlock Holmes."

"Kim, I'm sorry. It's just that you've been so busy and secretive these past two weeks. You're barely at home and the days you are, I'm off playing in a different city or at practice. I guess I just miss you. And it's upsetting me that I don't see you as often."

"I don't mean to be gone all time, really, I don't. But my job can be demanding sometimes, but I will try to make time for you."

"That's all I ask." Kim smiled as Ryan approached her and lightly planted a kiss on her lips. "So, can you make time for me now?"

"I can." Kim stepped on her tip toes as she reached up to give him a kiss of her own. Once they pulled apart, she grabbed his hand as they made their way from the stadium and to her car.

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Wes slammed the phone down in frustration when he once again reached Eric Myer's voicemail. What was it that was keeping him so busy, to where he couldn't leave return a phone call? Was something wrong? He had tried calling his dad and he too had not picked up. Wes was starting to get worried. He needed to tell Eric about Frax. Let him know what was going on.

Wes turned off the lights and headed to his room. It was late and he needed to get to the school early in the morning for tutorials. There were a lot of kids who were going to be showing up tomorrow, for tomorrow was the first test of the year. Some kids had been in a state of panic in class today so he had scheduled a small tutorial for those who had felt they weren't quite ready yet. He didn't want anyone to fail his first test.

After stripping off his work clothes and slipping into his pajama pants, Wes threw his body onto the bed. Even before Frax had shown up, Wes had been getting a feeling like something bad was about to happen. When Frax had shown up, he had thought that was what that's what it was, but the feeling still hadn't gone away. No, whatever it was, still hadn't struck yet, but he knew that when it did, there would be hell to pay. Wes breathed in a deep sigh before he rolled onto his stomach and curled up with his pillow. It had been a long day, and it wasn't long before he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

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Pain. That word seemed entirely too polite compared to the torment that he was feeling. His head had felt like someone had had taken his chrono-saber to it. Alex groaned as he lifted his head from the floor and quickly began to glance around. The last thing he remembered was telling the others to power down the ship, but then everything went black after that. Glancing around now he could see that he was still in the time ship and that it was completely deserted. Carefully standing up, Alex made his way through the small hall and out the door of the timeship.

He shouldn't have been surprised to see that they were no longer 3001, yet alone not standing on the loading bay, but he was. Following the voices he heard, he walked a little ways before he spotted his four teammates.

"Alex, good to see you're up, you've been out for awhile." Alex saw the smirk that Lucas wore on his lips as he said that.

"No thanks to the bunch of you. Where are we?"

Jen stepped forward and answered his question. "Circuit tells us that were outside the city of Reefside, California in the year 2003. About two years after we left."

"Have you found the other time ship?" Alex rubbed his head as the headache grew worse.

Trip stood up from the makeshift desk he had made and stepped away from Circuit. "No, we haven't. And we still don't know who stole it, but we did detect where the other timehole. It appeared about 32 minutes south of here. I doubt if we would find them now."

"Try contacting Captain Logan."

"We did. But the connection wasn't stable. We'll have to try again later."

Alex turned to walk back into the timeship when Lucas' question to Jen made him stop in his tracks. "What about those other rangers? Should we try and contact them?"

Alex turned around and headed straight back towards the foursome, "There are other rangers here?"

"Yes. We didn't know until earlier, when Trip tried to find some information on Reefside in the year 2003. He found some footage of them in Circuit's history banks. Their identities are unknown, but they're known to the city as the Dino Thunder Rangers."

"Trip, I want you to find out as much as you can about these rangers…"

"I already tried Alex, but besides a few battles, their history is unknown. I can't find anything on them past today's date. I think it's because they're going to be affected by our presence here, as well as whoever stole the ship. Their history has been re-written."

It was silent for the next five minutes before Katie finally broke the silence and glanced at Alex who was still standing near the timeship door. "What are we going to do now?"

"I don't know. At least not yet. I'm going to go see what supplies are stored in the timeship. See what we have available to us." While walking back in the direction of the timeship, Alex glanced into the woods, eyes expertly sweeping through the trees. For some odd reason, he felt like they were being watched. "Lucas, Katie, and Jen, I want the three of you to take a look around the area, make sure there's nothing out there. Trip I want you to cloak the ship. Make sure it can be seen visually and undetectable to a scan." Alex watched for a few moments as the pack of four broke apart and began to perform the tasks he had requested, but after a few moments turned back around and headed into the timeship.

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_A/N: Here's my latest chapter...things are about to get intresting. Thanks to all those who reviewed my last three chapters, I really appreciate it. I'm going to try to get out another chapter in the next two days but we'll see how that goes. Please REVIEW!! They mean alot. So until the next chapter..._


	11. Past and Present Part 1

_Disclaimer: Don't own the rangers._

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"I have other matters to attend to, so stop wasting my time and get to the point!"

Petra narrowed her eyes towards Mesogog as she watched him impatiently circle the lab. She had been aware of Frax's distaste for him and upon arriving, she immediately knew why. Mesogog was no different from Ransik. Both were power hungry, had no creativity or intelligence. They treated their soldiers with no respect, and most noticeable, were how impatient they both were. Always wanting immediate results. Petra stood off in the corner of the lab where she undetected. Frax, Mesogog and Zeltrax had decided to meet in the lab to reveal Frax's new creation.

"Do remember Mesogog, I am not one of your henchmen. Now you can either continue to rant while I walk out that door or you can bite your tongue and listen to what I have to say." A ten second silence filled the room as Frax waited for Mesogog's answer.

"Just get on with it." Petra could hear the disgust in Mesogog's voice.

"That's better. Now as I was saying, I constructed Sideon to have similar trademarks as Zeltrax, such as the armor and the body build, but that's as far as the similarities go. Sideon will be smarter, stronger, and faster. He will have the ability to move and function just as a human would. With every battle he will learn his opponents moves, know how they think. Sideon is capable of speech, but it is very limited. He is a completely obedient to his master, and is programmed to follow their orders alone. And, courtesy of Time Force, he is powered by the blue trizyrium crystal. One of the most powerful energy resources of our time."

"And when will we meet this Sideon?" Petra's gaze shifted from Frax to Zeltrax.

"Once he is fully completed, I still have a few modifications left."

"Then make them quick. I want to see what this robot can do." Mesogog glared at Frax before turning around and swiftly exiting the lab with Zeltrax close behind him.

Petra slowly stepped out of the shadows and walked towards Frax while still gazing at the lab door, "I don't think it's wise of you to leave Sideon in Mesogog's hands."

"I am not a fool, Petra, I know what I'm doing. I have bigger plans for Sideon, than for him to be Mesogog's toy. I will strike when the time is right." Petra felt a chill go down her spine, as Frax's red eyes lit up the semi-dark lab.

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At the sound of the bell, Kira jumped out of her seat and ran for the door. Pre-Cal wasn't exactly her favorite class and today had been a very difficult lesson. She didn't even want to look at tonight's homework. Kira stopped outside of the door to wait for Conner to come out of the class. At first she had despised having three classes with Conner, but it proved to actually be kind of cool. She always had someone to talk to and because of their after school jobs, Conner had become a good friend. Finally seeing the boy in red come through the door she quickly fell into step next to him. "That was the lesson from hell."

"You don't have to tell me. I'm never going to get to sleep tonight. We've only had two classes and already I'm swamped."

"You would think for a Thursday, there wouldn't be so much work."

"Just one more day until the weekend." As Kira and Conner approached the next hall, they both stopped off to the side and continued their conversation. "So are you ready for your show tomorrow, I hear a lot of people are going?"

"Yeah, I'm ready. Just have to get a last minute practice in today after school and I'll be set. Are you coming?"

Kira watched as a look of surprise spread over Conner's face. "Kira, have I ever missed a show. I'll be there, on the first stool, closest to the stage."

Kira laughed at Conner, before the two minute bell rang. "We should get to class, we're tardy enough as it is."

"I've got Wes next period; you know he's pretty cool about being late as long as it's no more than thirty seconds."

Kira smiled, "I wouldn't know. I've never been late to his class. I'll see you later in government, Con."

"No you won't."

"Why?"

"Because you're going to see me at lunch first." Conner grinned at her as she went to playfully push him towards the opposite direction.

"Get to class, Conner."

"I'm going, I'm going." Kira smiled at Conner's back, before she started her own walk to class.

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"It still amazes me how even though our time ship didn't crash, we still have very limited supplies. We're going to have to head towards the city soon."

"I don't think Alex is going to approve of that Jen."

"He's not going to have a choice, Trip. We're almost out of food and water. And we can't continue to sleep on the timeship floor night after night. Not to mention we've been without proper hygiene for three days. If we don't think of something fast we're either going to die of starvation or …"

"Okay, Jen. We get it. Calm down." All of the rangers heard the amusement at Jen's rant in her own voice.

"I'm sorry. It's just last time we had…we had Wes. We need to figure out what to do, and since we're more experienced than Alex, I think that we should be the ones to decide on what the next plan of action should be."

"I second that." Lucas glanced around them before returning to the conversation. "Where is Alex?"

"He's fell asleep in the timeship. His head was still hurting. You shouldn't have hit him so hard Lucas."

"I didn't mean to…well…at least not consciously."

Trip and Katie shared a smirk between the two of them at Lucas' words, while Jen just glared at him. "You're lucky he hasn't said anything about it. You hit your commanding officer; you could get fired for that."

"Well I'm not the only one. We all disobeyed his orders. We could all be written up for that."

"Look, let's not worry about that now. We're here and that's all that matters. We should get back to trying to find out where our other timeship went. And who took it. We talk about this more when Alex gets up."

They four rangers got up from the grass covered ground and set off to complete their different task.

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Haley groaned again as she managed to trip and fall for the third time, while searching through the forest. After pulling herself up off the ground, and brushing herself off she once again began to trudge through the wooded area. In the past three days she had struggled to find exactly what had caused those weird energy signatures. Last night after once again coming up empty handed she decided that she was just going to go to the location where the disturbances occurred and would see for her self what was going on. Her first stop was Barne's Cove, seeing as how it was a lot closer.

She glanced at her watch, 12:49. Haley had left the Cyberspace in the hands of her assistant manager Lexi, but she wanted to be back before the high school rush came in. Haley glanced back down to the small GPA system she had in her hand, she wasn't far from the coordinates she had recorded. She would make it in time. Picking up her pace, Haley headed in the coordinates direction.

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"Has anyone found anything yet?" Alex's voice broke the other four rangers out of their thought as he came out of the timeship.

Trip answered Alex's question first, "Nothing. Circuit and I tried contacting Time Force, and we still can't get a connection."

"And Lucas and I tried scanning for the other timeship again, but the cloaking device is still up. We can't find it anywhere."

Alex turned his head to the last person of their group. "Jen, did you find anything?"

"Nothing," Jen turned around to face Alex and the others. "And we're not going to find anything until we can at least find out who stole the timeship. Or get in contact with Time Force. We don't even have a square one to start from."

"Maybe I can help with that." The rangers quickly stood up and got into a defensive position as woman came from the trees and invaded their camp.

"Who are you? What are you doing here," Jen demanded.

"My name is Haley Rowden, and I'm here to help."

Alex's voice was cold as he responded, "We don't need your help. Now leave."

"Wow." Haley stared at his face before shaking it off and glancing around the others. "I'm going to get straight to the point. I came here because a few days ago I got some weird energy readings that were coming from this exact area. I couldn't locate whatever it was so I decided to come check it out myself. And here I found you guys. The Time Force Rangers."

"How do you know who we are?"

"I know a lot about you guys. I also know you're from the future. You're here to capture Frax aren't you?"

"FRAX?!"

Jen stepped forward. "Frax is dead. He was destroyed in 2001."

"Well he's not dead anymore. The thing that attacked us last Sunday was definitely Frax." A thought occurred to Haley. "Wait, if you didn't come here to capture Frax, why are you here."

"Hold on a second. What do you mean by attacked 'us'?"

"I mean he attacked the rangers."

"You're a ranger?"

"No. I'm the advisor to the rangers. I run things at our base and also build the weaponry."

Katie stepped forward, "You know the Dino Thunder Rangers?"

"Of course, they're friends of mine. I can take you to meet them. By the looks of things, something tells me that we're going to need each other's help."

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Ethan was glad that the school day was over. This week had passed by slowly and he was glad there was only one more day left until the weekend. Ethan stood near the parking lot as he waited to meet both Conner and Kira. Normally the three of them would have met up at Haley's as they did everyday, but he had gotten a text from her during sixth period to go straight to the lair after school. He knew his fellow rangers had gotten the same message. And speaking of yellow rangers, he spotted Kira walking towards him. "Hey, Kira."

"Hey, Eth. So do you have any ideas as to why Haley wants to see us?"

"Nope, not a clue. Maybe it has something to do with why you-know-who has been so quiet. It's been three days and not a word. I'm starting to get anxious."

"I know what you mean. Although it has been nice to just be a normal teenager for three days."

"That's true. I hope this doesn't take long. I have really important things I need to do."

"Oh, please Ethan. What to do have to do? Pass a stupid level on some stupid game?"

"Okay first of all, Halo is not stupid a game. It is the best game ever. And secondly, I'm on the last level, so it requires my full concentration and all of my free time."

Ethan watched as Kira rolled her eyes and shifted her gaze towards the side gym doors. "What is taking Conner so long?"

"He's probably busy hitting on one of the cheerleaders."

"Just for that, I'm making you walk to Dr.O's house." Ethan and Kira both turned around to see a certain red ranger standing behind them.

"I thought you had soccer practice?"

"No. Since we're not in season anymore, Coach just has us do study hall in the library."

"Wow. Conner went into a library? Now all Kira needs to do is read Cosmo Girl and I would've seen everything." Ethan ducked as a hand swatted at his head. "I was kidding!"

Conner quickly stepped between Kira and Ethan. "Okay, so do you guys want to take separate cars or just ride in one?"

"I say separate, just in case we have to stay late."

"I like the way you think Kira Ford. So we'll meet each other there." With that said, the three broke off and headed in separate directions of the parking lot.

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_A/N: So I'm going out of a town for a few days and I wanted to post this chapter before I left. I have the other half of this chapter ready to be posted, but I'm not sure how soon I can get it up, but make sure to look for it! And as always...REVIEW!!! See you next chapter! _


	12. Past and Present Part 2

_Disclaimer: Disney owns the rangers, not me._

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Haley sat in her usually spot in front of the computer as the other rangers scattered around for a place to sit. She had just finished giving them the grand tour of the Dino Lair in an attempt to pass the time. Now all they had left to do was sit and wait for the other to arrive. "So when are we going to meet the other rangers?"

Haley smiled at the green-haired ranger known as Trip. From the moment they had arrived in the Dino Lair, he had been very eager to meet the other rangers.

"They should be here soon. I sent them a message earlier and the moment they get out of school, they're heading straight here."

"School? Hold on, are you telling me that you have a bunch of _kids_ parading around as the power rangers?" Haley could hear the criticism in Alex's voice. She shifted her gaze to look directly at Wes' doppelganger.

"First off, only three of them are in school, the others three are veteran rangers. Secondly, they're eighteen, so they're not kids. And in case if you've forgotten, six high school freshmen made up the original team of rangers, and I think we can all agree when I say they did an excellent job." Haley kept her eyes glued to Alex's, even after she was done speaking, daring him to say something else.

"You said the others were veteran rangers? Who are they?" Haley broke the contact with Alex and began to ponder on whether or not to answer the yellow ranger's question. Should she tell them about Tommy and Kim? More importantly, should she tell them about Wes? Haley was well aware of what had happened between Wes and the Time Force rangers and although he told her that they ended on good terms, did that mean he wouldn't be upset to learn that they were here? How would the Time Force rangers react? Haley decided it was best to just keep it quiet and let them find out once the rangers had arrived.

"I'll let you guys find out for yourselves. Like I said they should be here soon. And once they all arrive we can discuss exactly what's going on."

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As Kim approached Tommy Oliver's driver, she wasn't surprised to see three teenagers getting out of three separate cars that were parked in his driveway. Kim carefully parked her car a few feet away before shifting it into park and turning off ignition. Unbuckling her seat belt, and placing her cell phone on the car charger, she swiftly got out of the car and joined the three teens who were watching her from a few yards away. "Hey guys?" In return Kim got three hellos from the trio. "Do any of you know what this is about?"

Kim watched as Conner casually leaned against his car before facing her. "No. We were kind of hoping you knew. We just got a message from Haley saying to meet here after school. That it was important."

"Yeah. That's the message I got too." Kim glanced around Tommy's driveway before turning back to Conner, Ethan and Kira. "Judging by the absence of their cars, I presume Tommy and Wes aren't here?"

Ethan stepped forward as he engaged in the conversation. "Nope. I know Dr.O said he had to stay after and prepare a lab for class tomorrow, but that he would be here as soon as he was finished."

Kira jumped in right after Ethan. "And Wes said he had to stop and pick something up before heading over here."

With a sigh Kim, followed by the others, walk towards the front door. "Let's just head inside then and not keep Haley waiting."

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Haley's head jerked towards the ceiling as she heard the front door open, followed by the creaking of the wood floors. "They're here." She simply put before turning her chair around to face the entrance of the basement. In a matter of seconds the door to the basement could be heard opening before the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs could be heard. Haley saw out of the corner of her eye, the Time Force rangers stand up from where they were seating.

"So Haley what was so important th-… okay, what did you do to your hair!?" Conner's observation caused the other three rangers to rush down the stairs after him, and Haley watched in amusement as they all stared at Alex with astonishment written all over their faces.

Haley noticed that the four rangers failed to see the other four occupants of the room, as they were too busy looking at who they thought was Wes. Haley opened her mouth to explain what was going on, but before she got out a word, surprisingly, Kim beat her to the punch.

"That's not Wes." Three different reactions happened as soon as the words left her mouth. Haley turned shocked at how Kim had known that Alex wasn't Wes. The remaining Dino rangers stared at Alex again, wondering who it was that looked so much like Alex. And the Time Force team all turned their gazes towards Kim when she mentioned the name Wes. _Maybe I should have said something beforehand_, Haley thought to herself as she watched the events unfold in front of her.

Jen and Ethan were the first to react to the situation, "How do you guys know Wes?"

"Then who is that guy?"

Haley decided to jump and do some damage control before things got really confusing. "Okay, one question at a time here. And I'll start first." Haley turned her glance to Kim. "How did you know that wasn't Wes?"

Kim looked at Haley as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Well, besides the identical faces, he doesn't look a thing like Wes. Wes has lighter blue eyes than this guy. And Wes' hair isn't long enough to be slicked back like that. Not to mention he's a bit taller than Wes, and no offense to you," Kim glanced at Alex, "but Wes face isn't as hard as his. It's a lot more relaxed." Haley knew that the same look that was on Conner, Kira and Ethan's face was splashed all over her face as they stared as Kim questioningly. "What?" Seeing there suspicious looks, Kim gave them a small smile. "We were locked up in a cell for two days together. He was the most interesting thing to look at."

Satisfied with her answer Haley turned her attention to the whole group pf rangers that stood before her. "Alright, now that my curiosity is satisfied we can move onto to everyone else's. Why don't you guys introduce each other," she asked the Time Force rangers.

Haley saw the look Alex sent her, but he shook it off and stepped forwards anyway. "My name is Alex Drake, Red Time Force Ranger."

The other four rangers stepped forward as they introduced themselves as well. "Trip Regis, Green Time Force Ranger."

"Katie Walker, Yellow Time Force Ranger."

"Jen Scotts, Pink Time Force Ranger."

"Lucas Kendall, Blue Time Force Ranger."

Haley watched as the four Dino rangers sent each other a look as they realized who these people were. But with Conner's lead they kept on with the introductions, "Conner McKnight, Red Dino Ranger."

"Ethan James, Blue Dino Ranger."

"Kira Ford, Yellow Dino Ranger."

"Kimberly Hart, Pink Dino Ranger."

Haley watched in confusion as the Time Force rangers dropped their jaws at the mention of Kim's name. Jen stepped forward and looked at Kim with amazement in her eyes. "Oh my god, you're Kimberly Hart? The Earth's original Pink ranger?"

Kim blushed a little before smiling and reaching to shake the hand of the other ranger, "Yup, that would be me."

"Wow. It is an honor to meet you."

"Um…thanks." Kim answered embarrassingly before letting go of Jen's hand and stepping back in line with her teammates.

"Now for our question…how do you guys know Wes?" In the small time that she had known him, Haley noticed that Alex was the type of guy who got straight to the point and didn't dance around a subject.

"What do you mean, how do we know him? He's our teammate." Once again Haley noticed as Conner took command over their side of the conversation.

"Teammate, as in he's also a ranger?"

"Yea, our white ranger." Looks of shock spread across the Time Force ranger's faces as the revelation of Conner's words sunk in.

Katie smiled at her fellow rangers, "So Wes is a ranger again. That's great. I'm glad he got another chance, he made a great red ranger." Katie turned towards Haley and smiled even wider at her. "Is he coming here?"

"As far as I know, he's on his way as we speak."

"So what are you guys doing here? Aren't you from the future?" Kira voice broke through the excitement that was quickly consuming the Green, Blue, and Yellow Time Force rangers.

Haley cut in before anyone could answer Kira's question. "I think it would be best if we waited to discuss everything once everyone is present."

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"Long day, huh?"

"Don't I know it, I can't wait to go home and through myself into my bed."

Tommy envisioned himself lying in his own king sized bed as he and a fellow teacher walked to their cars. That thought was quickly dismissed as he realized that once he got home, he had ranger business to take care of. No, he wouldn't get to lie in his bed for awhile. As Tommy approached his jeep, he threw his briefcase into the back of his car before waving to the other teacher, "See you Monday, Ron."

"Bye, Tom."

Tommy opened his car door, jumped into his seat, and buckled his seat belt before driving out of the school parking lot, and headed straight for his house. Tommy enjoyed these drives home, they gave him time to think and clear his head. And lately, he had needed a lot of time to think through some things. Well, more like one thing, or one person.

Tommy hadn't thought that Kim coming back into his life wouldn't be such a big deal. What had happened between them was a long time ago, a part of his life that he had let go. But as usual when it came to these things, he was wrong. Sure, he and Kim got along, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't happy she had come back into his life. But her return had brought up feelings he had thought were long buried. And each day he could feel them get closer and closer to the surface, wanting to come out. But it was hard to tell which feelings were coming from the twenty-eight year old doctor, and which feelings were coming from the broken-hearted seventeen-year old who was still buried inside him.

But out of all the emotions he was feeling, the one that both sides of him were feeling was anger. Anger at how she had thrown away all they had for some guy she had just met. He was angry at her for not having the courage to at least call him and explain what was going on and for breaking up with him with a letter. Did she not understand how much of him she destroyed? Sure he had girlfriends, including Kat for a few years, but even she had got tired of Tommy's hesitance to fully commit to their relationship.

After graduating college, he spent all his time into his doctorate and them later creating the rangers and the technology that went with it. He knew that at some point this would problem would have to be addressed otherwise he was sure to go crazy. He wasn't looking to win Kimberly back; he had let her go along time ago. But he did want some closure and to know what had caused them to fall apart.

Before Tommy knew it, he was pulling up into the driveway of his carefully hidden house. He noticed everyone cars, minus Wes sitting in the driveway as he parked his car. Grabbing his suitcase and hopping out of his car, Tommy rushed up the small steps and opened the front door to his house. If the other ranger were already here, he was sure they were most likely waiting on Wes and him to start.

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Jen took a deep sigh as once again the room filled with a unbearable silence. This was starting to get old very quickly. Ten minutes ago Thomas Oliver, _the _Thomas Oliver, had come marching down the basement stairs. To say that she and the others had been shocked to see him was an understatement. This was all too much to take in such a small amount of time. And then there was finding out about Wes. Wes being a ranger had been surprising to them all. And yet, she found herself smiling every time she though about it. Or just plain him for that matter.

She had missed him so much. She always wondered what had happened to him, and was excited to know that soon she would find out. But with that excitement, she was incredibly nervous. The last time she had seen Wes had been on the beach, the day they had left. She still remembered the things he had said to her, but for both their sakes, she hoped that it wouldn't be brought up anytime soon. She didn't want to have to deal with so much in such a little time.

Her thoughts went back to the Dino Rangers. There was several things the two teams needed to talk about and it was driving her crazy to just sit here and wait. The Dino ranger insisted that Wes be here before they actually started talking, they didn't want to have to repeat the story twice, and Jen understood that. It made sense to wait for him, plus it would make it easier to get answers and question Wes at the same time. At the sound of the basement door opening, Jen felt her breath get caught in her throat as the footsteps came closer, and then finally, Wes came into view.

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Wes was completely silent. He didn't know what to say. To come down into the Dino Lair and see the Time Force Rangers standing there was the single most surprising moment of his life. How was he supposed to react to this? So he settled for what he thought was best. It was short, sweet, and straight to the point. "What are you doing here?" He didn't mean to make it sound so rude, but he really didn't have complete mental control of his mouth at the moment.

"That's exactly what we all want to know. We were just waiting on you."

Haley's voice barely registered with Wes, as he walked over to the area where the Dino rangers were sitting and joined his current teammates. "Well, I'm here now."

Wes watched as his former teammates and Alex glanced at each other before silently agreeing for Trip to be the one to speak for the group. "It's a long story, but I guess it's best if I start from the beginning…a few days ago, in the year 3001, Time Force Headquarters was attacked…"

Wes listened intently to the story that Trip was telling, but most of it through one ear and out the other. He heard bits of things every once and a while, but not the story as a whole. He was too busy staring at his former teammates. Lucas had seemed to have cut his hair and no longer wore it with spikes. Instead, it was lying down on his head, still held down my gel of course. Wes thought it looked like Lucas has just gotten out of the shower. Other than that, it appeared that the blue ranger looked exactly the same.

Next to Lucas was Katie. Katie didn't seem to have changed at all. Her face was still flawless and beautiful. She still had the same curly hair, only this time it was pulled back by a clip, just it had been when he had first met them, in 2001. And just by the smile she had sent him earlier, he could tell she was still the loving and caring woman she had been before. He was glad to see that some things hadn't changed.

Trip had probably been through the biggest change. He seemed to have grown up a lot since that last time Wes has seen him. Gone was Trip's messy long green hair, in its place was a shorter haircut and the hair was much more tamed. Wes also noticed how much muscle Trip seemed to have gained. He wasn't that scrawny guy anymore; there was definite muscle which his uniform clearly defined.

Lastly, there was Jen. As Wes remembered, she was just as gorgeous as ever. But there were noticeable differences. Her hair had gotten a longer, darker, and straighter. She was wearing it in that strict ponytail, but he could still the differences. Jen had also gotten a little skinnier than he remembered. "Haley mentioned that Frax was alive earlier, are you sure it's him?"

Wes was aware that it was Jen who asked the question and he was also aware that it was him who answered, 'Yea, I'm positive' but other than that, everything else escaped him. He could hear the others talk about the incident that had happened on Sunday, followed by Haley telling everyone about her tracking the timeholes, and finding the Time Force rangers. Then the conversation turned solely to him. Alex asked the first question.

"How did you manage to become a ranger?" If Wes didn't know any better he would swear there was a hint of criticism in Alex's voice, but he ignored it and shook it off.

"A few weeks ago, Kim and I were captured by Mesogog's two goons," Seeing the confusion on the other's faces, he filled them in, "Mesogog is the guy who is currently trying to take over the world. He's our Ransik." Shaking his head, Wes continued onwards. "Anyway, Kim and I were kidnapped and taken to Mesogog's hideout. After two days, we managed to get free and while trying to get out, we came across the Dino gems. We grabbed them and headed out. We didn't realize at the time that the gems had bonded to us."

"Bonded?"

Lucas' question grabbed Tommy's attention. "Yeah. The dino gems' power can't be harnessed unless it finds you suitable."

"I don't understand."

"The gems choose you, you don't choose the gems. The gems wouldn't have bonded to any of us if we didn't have what it took."

A loud growl sounded through the basement and all of the occupants turned to look at the source of the noise. "Hungry, Trip?"

Wes smiled as a small grin spread on the green ranger's face, "Yea. It's been awhile since we ate."

Kim for the first time since Wes had arrived spoke up, "Why don't I go order some Chinese. Sound good to everyone?"

Several 'yes' spoke out at once before Kim made her way upstairs to the kitchen phone.

Ethan awkwardly stood up before announcing to the Dino team, "We should probably go help her." Haley, Conner, Kira, and Tommy followed closely behind him as they rushed up the stairs behind Kim. Wes turned his head back towards the remaining people in the lab to find everyone staring at him. "What?"

"Nice hair." At Katie's comment Wes self consciously raised his hand to his head as he felt around to see if his hair was out of place. "No, I mean it looks good. You changed it."

Sheepishly Wes grinned before lowering his hand. He had cut his hair almost a year ago and had since kept the length short and the hair out of his face. He now wore it short and messy, but he held in place with mousse. "Oh, yeah. Got sick of the boyish hair so I hacked it all off."

"So what have you been up to?" Trip asked.

"Nothing much. I'm a teacher at Reefside High. So is Tommy. I actually have Conner and Kira in my classes. "

"Glad to hear you stuck to the teacher thing." Wes smiled at Jen before asking a few questions of his own.

"So how long as it been for you guys, since you left 2001?"

"Eight months."

"So you're the white ranger now. How does it feel to no longer wear red?" For the second time Wes could hear the attitude in Alex's voice.

Again, Wes ignored it. "Great. Red was nice, but I think white is more my color."

Before any more questions could be asked, the Dino team returned from the kitchen and came pounding down the stairs. Kim was the first to arrive and slowly approached Wes. "Bad news, Wes. We decided that since you didn't help with the ordering of the food, you should be the one to go pick it up."

"That's not fair! You left me…"

"Sorry, the vote was unanimous." With a pat to his back, Kim walked past Wes and went back to her vacated seat.

With a sigh Wes grabbed his keys out of his pockets and quickly made his ways upstairs, but before he was completely out of the basement he could have sworn he heard Trip say, "Now he knows how I felt." The basement erupted into laughter.

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Mesogog paced back and forth in his quarters before calling in both Elsa and Zeltax. "Is Frax finished with Sideon yet?"

"No, Master. Frax says he will need more time. He ran across an unexpected complication." Mesogog lowered his to head to glance at Zeltarx's bowed figure.

"I've waited too long. I want the two of you to escort one of my monsters to downtown Reefside. I'm getting very impatient with Frax and I'm done waiting to attack the rangers. Go now!"

Mesogog watched as Elsa and Zeltrax immediately stood up and left his quarters in a quick haste, but before they were completely out of the room he shouted, "And at least try to accomplish something today. I will settle for one destroyed ranger." With that the two left the room, as Mesogog sat down in his chair.

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The alarms blared loudly in the Dino Lair as Haley quickly spun around to face the computer. "Guys, Zeltrax and Elsa are attacking downtown Reefside. And they've got some monster with them."

Tommy jumped up and ran into the center of the lab followed by Kira, Ethan, Kim, and Conner. "We're on it, Haley."

Conner took the position of leader and stood in the middle, "Ready?"

"Ready!"

"DINO THUNDER, POWER UP!"

In a flash the Red, Black, Pink, Yellow and Blue dino rangers stood in the lab. Haley watched as they grabbed their raptor riders or in Tommy's case ATV and sped out of the lair. She turned her attention back to the screen as she watched them exit out of the back entrance and into the woods.

"That was so cool. Did you see that?" Haley smirked at Trip's excitement as she continued to monitor the rangers.

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Wes threw open the front door as he made his way into the house and into the kitchen as he sat the two bags full of Asian cuisine on the table. Setting his keys down, Wes moved over to the basement entrance and threw open the hatch before making his way downstairs. "Food is here!"

As soon as he entered the basement, he immediately noticed five people missing. To his left, he saw Haley and the others turn their heads from the battle on the screen towards him. Seeing that his friends were fighting he rushed toward the center of the lab. "Haley, where are they?"

"Downtown Reefside. You better hurry, between Zeltrax, Elsa, the tyrannodrones and their latest monster, the others are outnumbered."

"Then we better even it up." With six pairs of eyes on him, Wes raised his left wrist and gave it a quick flick. "WHITE RANGER, DINO POWER!"

In a matter of seconds Wes was zooming out of the Dino Lair on his ATV.

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_A/N: Thanks to all of you who reviewed chapter 11! I finally got the time to post Chapter 12, which I'm more than thankful for because I know some of you were anxious for me to get it up. I might have Chapter 13 posted by Tuesday, so keep your eyes out for it. And as always review!!_


	13. Past and Present Part 3

_Disclaimer: Disney owns the rangers!_

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"That. Was. Awesome." Ethan led the group of six rangers into the cave as they pulled in their vehicles after returning from battle. "Haley I give you major props for this one."

"The power was incredible!"

"I definitely can't wait to do that again."

"You're telling me. The last time I felt something that powerful was when we first got the great powers on Phaedos."

"Or when I first got my white ranger power from Zordon."

"It felt like morphing for the first time all over again."

Ethan, Conner, Kira, and Kim rested their bikes on the kickstands as Tommy and Wes parked the ATV's off in the corner. Once they were done, together the team powered down and made their way towards the center of the basement.

Haley and the Time Force rangers waited a few seconds before approaching the Dino team and congratulating them on their latest victory. "That was so cool. You guys were amazing! That upgrade mode was great!"

"Thanks. But like Ethan said, all props go to Haley." Kim passed through the group of rangers before standing next to Haley and resting her hand on her shoulder. "I don't know how you did it, but that Super Dino mode was genius. Thanks, Hales."

Once the commotion died down, and the excitement from the battle had ceased, both teams sat down and started to discuss their next move. "So what are we going to do now?"

Alex glanced at Katie as he pondered her question. He took a deep breath before answering her. "First, we need to figure out who it was who stole the timeship. Haley, you said that you recorded both locations of where the holes opened up, do you still have those?"

"Of course."

"Good. We'll use that as a starting point. Trip, I need you to get working on the communicator. We need to get in contact with Logan, and let him know what's going on."

"You got it. But what do we do about Frax?"

"We capture him like we originally should've done. And I'm willing to bet Frax has something to do with whoever it was that stole the timeship. It's not a coincidence that both of them show up in the same time. Maybe it's an accomplice of his."

Alex considered what Jen said before assigning his next order. "Alright. We need to look into Frax's history. See if there is anyone he would contact for help or assistance."

"Okay, say we find out all this information. What are we going to do then? It's not like we know where Frax is hiding. We would have to wait for him to make his first move."

"Not to mention he already has help from Mesogog's side. He could make things a lot worse for us."

Alex turned towards Tommy. "We can't fight in your teams' battles. That could involve the changing of history. We're going to stay out of anything that relates to Mesogog. But if it in anyway involves Frax or anything else from our time, then we'll fight."

Kira looked around at her team before looking at Tommy, "So what does this mean?"

"It means that if we have to deal with Frax in the future, then we have some reinforcements."

Wes finally entered the conversation as he directed a question to his former teammates, "So what are you guys going to do now?"

Thankfully, it wasn't Alex who answered, but Lucas who jumped in before he could say anything. "Probably head back to the time ship, and get started on our research. There's a lot of work to do. Plus, we need to see what leftover resources we have available to us. We pretty much decimated the edible vegetation in our area, so we may need to get some supplies soon."

"Hold on, where are you guys staying?"

"In the timeship."

Before Wes could even start to offer his suggestions to his friends from the future, Tommy seemed to have been way ahead of him. "You could stay here. I have four bedrooms and it's just me so there's plenty of room for you guys."

Alex once again acted as speaker for the group of Time Force rangers. "Thanks, but no thanks. We wouldn't want to get in the way…"

"Believe me; you're not in the way. It's logical for the five of you to stay here. You could use the instruments and tools that we have here in the Dino Lair. Plus, you'll be near us, so if we need you, you won't be that far away."

"He's right Alex. Besides we can't stay in that ship forever. We need a proper base of operations. This is the perfect place."

Again Alex pondered Jen's words. He glanced around his teammates faces and saw the silent plead in their eyes. They had been living quite badly the past three days, and he could see that they had had enough. Turning back to glance at Tommy, Alex extended his hand while replying, "Okay. We'll stay. And thanks for this."

Tommy shook his hand for a few moments before letting go. "No problem. I could use the company anyways. So do you all want me to show you around?"

"Actually, we need to return to the time machine before dark and gather all the equipment we'll need. We can have the tour later."

"Alright that's fine. Do you guys want to head to the café? Tommy said as he turned around to face Haley and the other dino rangers.

Kira's eyes snapped open as she grabbed Ethan's right wrist and glanced at his watch before jumping out of her seat. "How could I have forgotten! I have to go. I have rehearsal with the band!"

After a few minutes both teams were exiting the basement and gathering outside the house as they prepared to leave in the opposite directions. "We'll meet you at the café." Within seconds Haley, Conner, Ethan and Kira hopped into their cars and quickly sped off down the road. After agreeing on a time to meet the Time Force rangers back here, Tommy climbed into his jeep and followed the others towards Haley's café.

Wes turned towards Kim, who still stood near him and quickly spoke to her in a hushed tone. "Hey Kim, do you mind giving me a ride to the café? I think the others are going to need a car. "

"Yeah, no problem. I'll go wait in the car."

Wes approached Lucas with a grin on his face as he swung his keys around his finger. "Do you still remember the rules of the road?"

"I think so. But some may have slipped my mind."

"Ha. Ha. The white truck…" Wes pointed to the vehicle that was at the end of Tommy's driveway, "…is mine. You can use it to bring whatever it is you need. Do you know the way back?"

"Not a clue, but that's what Circuit is for."

"Where is Circuit?"

Trip answered Wes question, "He's back at the timeship. He'll be glad to see you!"

Wes laughed before handing Lucas his keys and heading back towards the passenger side of Kim's car. "I'll see you later." In a few seconds and with a wave goodbye, both cars broke of in separate directions.

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The café was filled with light commotion as several people sat scattered around the café. Haley had quickly decided after arriving that she needed to help Lexi and Trent with the small evening rush that was keeping them so busy. Ethan of course had immediately jumped on the nearest computer, while Conner settled for bouncing his red ball between his hands as he watched Kira's rehearsal. Tommy, Kim, and Wes sat in the corner of the café, where Kira's soft music could be heard, giving the rangers a comfortable atmosphere. They had been talking for about an hour before the conversation shifted to the white ranger. "Wes, how do you feel about having your old teammates back?"

Wes let a small smile creep on his face and turned to look at Tommy to answer his question. "Good, I guess."

Kim now looked at Wes with concerned eyes. "You guess?"

"I mean I'm happy that they're here. I missed them a lot. But them coming here opens up old wounds and I don't know if I'm ready to deal with it right now."

"Old wounds?"

Tommy turned to look at Kim. "Kim, if he doesn't want to talk about it, then let it be."

His voice was soft, but for some reason it still irritated Kim nonetheless. "I'm not forcing him, but it's better for him to talk about it than to keep it all to himself."

Wes could see Tommy getting ready to protest her statement so he quickly jumped in, "No it's fine. I can talk about it. I've got three problems." Seeing that the pink and black ranger's attention was on him again, he continued. "First, I'm going to have to deal with Alex again. When we first met when didn't get off to a good start but I thought we parted on good terms. Apparently I was wrong. And then there's this thing with Jen."

"You don't get along with Jen?"

"No, I do. A little too well." Wes glanced into the eyes of his teammates before making his confession. "While they were here, a year and half ago, I fell in love with her. And I told her how I felt before she left to go back home. And that's not even the worst part," Seeing the curiosity in their eyes, he went on. "She's engaged to Alex."

"Do you still love her?"

"Yeah, I do."

Tommy nodded his head in understanding before speaking to his fellow teammate. "I see what you mean, that is a problem. It's better to just let it go and act like everything's normal. Believe me Wes, the last thing you want to do is get involved with a fellow ranger.

Kim narrowed her eyes at Tommy. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tommy switched his attention from Wes to Kim. "It doesn't mean anything. I'm just saying to get involved with her would be a bad move. Not only could it create tension between the team, but he could also end up getting hurt."

"Since when did you become the Dr.Phil of relationships?"

Kim's comment angered Tommy and before he could stop himself he let the unavoidable slip out. "The second I finished reading your 'Dear John' letter."

Wes sat between the two of them, watching as they glared at each other, before Kim broke the contact and looked back at Wes. "I think what you need to do is talk to Jen. And soon. You'll just make things awkward if you two don't at least talk about what happened. To try and pretend like nothing's wrong would be a cowardly move."

"Cowardly? You're one to be calling me a coward. You didn't even have the decency to at least call me and tell me you were breaking up with me!"

Seeing that Tommy's angered voice was attracting unwanted ears and eyes, including Kira, Conner, and Ethan's, Wes quickly intervened. "I don't know what just happened here, but the both of you need to calm down. You're drawing attention to yourselves."

"It's getting late. I need to get home anyway." Not even saying goodbye Kim grabbed her purse and stomped out of the Cyberspace Café.

Wes turned his eyes back to Tommy. Silently asking him what the hell had just happened. He didn't get his answer. Tommy furiously grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair before he too stormed out the café.

"What was that about?" Ethan voice grabbed Wes attention from the still trembling doors of the Cyberspace.

Shocked and highly confused Wes turned around to face the three concerned teens before throwing his hands up in the air and exasperatedly answering, "I have no idea."

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Katie lifted the heavy cases downstairs into the basement as they situated their things off into a corner. "Well that's everything." Katie made her way back up the stairs into the living room of Tommy Oliver's house where the rest of the rangers had gathered. She threw her hands out and patted them on her leg before sitting on a nearby loveseat, "So?"

"I still can't get over Wes being the white ranger."

Jen breathed a deep sigh before sitting in the loveseat next to Katie. "I don't think any of us can, Lucas."

"I think he makes a great white ranger. And did you guys see his suit, it was so cool. Especially in Super Dino Mode. With all those spikes!" Trip's excitement brought smiles to Katie, Lucas, and Jen's faces.

"It will be great working with him again, huh?" Katie wore a grin as she playfully nudged Jen.

Jen sent Katie a glare before seeing if anyone else, particularly Alex, had caught their little exchange. Luckily for her, Alex seemed to be zoning out for the moment, leaving Trip and Lucas as the only witnesses. "Yeah, it should be great."

Alex finally came too and turned his attention to the group. "I think it'd be best if we call it a night. We're going to need to wake up early so we can get started on our search. Oliver said the three rooms on the second floor are the ones we could stay in. Katie, Jen you take one, while Lucas and Trip take the other. And I'll take the last one."

The rangers wished each other goodnight before each of them went into their separate rooms. Fifteen minutes later, four heads popped out of the two rooms. Lucas glanced at Jen from across the hall and quietly whispered to her, "We're not actually going to bed are we?"

"No. Just needed to make sure he went to bed." Quickly making her way to Alex's door, Jen lightly pressed her ear against the door. Hearing no noise come from the other side of the door, Jen gave the other three the all clear.

After making their way downstairs back to the living room, Katie turned to look at Jen, "Do you think he realizes its only 8:24?"

"Probably not. It's been a long three days."

"Well I don't l know about you guys but I know that the food from earlier is still sitting on the table. Anyone want to join?"

The four starving officers darted for the kitchen as soon as Lucas had stopped talking.

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Kimberly Hart was beyond angry. She had thought that the car ride home from Haley's would have calmed her down. But all it did was increase her anger ten fold. As she fumbled to with her keys to open the front door only one thought ran through her head. Who the hell did Tommy Oliver think he was? God, that man infuriated her to no other. She yanked open her front door as soon as she opened it, and threw her purse down on the small table that rested near the door.

"Where have you been?"

Kim silently grunted as soon as she heard Ryan's voice, she was not in the mood for this. "I had some coffee with a few friends of mine."

"You were supposed meet me at six. I called your phone a dozen times and all I got was the voicemail."

"Something important came up. And I left my phone charging in the car."

"So you couldn't call and tell me you weren't coming."

"Ryan, I've had a long day. I'm tired and I'm not in the mood for this."

"Then get in the mood because I'm sick of your disappearing act. Every since we moved here you're nowhere to be found. I'm surprised you still have a job!"

"I don't need to explain to you everything little thing I do, Ryan. I know I've been scarce lately, and believe me when I say that I would be here all the time if I could."

"Then what's stopping you? It's not like you're out saving the world?"

Kim rubbed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh. "I can't tell you." She barely whispered.

"Why can't you tell me?"

"Because I can't, Ryan. I need you trust me. Trust that when this is over, I will always be here for you."

"I can't do that, Kim."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know if I trust you anymore." Kim didn't fully register what had just happened until she heard the front door slam as Ryan walked out.

"Great. That's just great!"

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"Hello?'

"Dad?!"

"Wesley?"

"Where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you…"

"Calm down, son. I'm sorry about not returning your messages. But things at Bio-Lab have been very chaotic. We're getting ready to merge with another company from the East Coast. I've been going back and forth the past two weeks."

"And you couldn't once pick up the phone?"

"Is something the matter, son?"

"I was just…I got worried. I couldn't get a hold of you or Eric and…I'm sorry, Dad."

"It's okay. And about Eric, he's been out of the country. I wouldn't expect him back for another week."

"What? Where did he go?"

"Japan. An old teacher of his isn't doing to well so Eric requested some vacation time. I thought he would have told you."

"No. Maybe he was just busy. Well I don't want to keep you, Dad. I just wanted to make sure you were alive."

"Hanging up so soon?"

"I have a lesson to finish planning for tomorrow. I really didn't think I was going to get in touch with anyone. But I am coming home, next weekend, so I'll see you then."

"Alright, take care Wesley."

"Bye, pop."

Wes put the phone down back on the receiver after speaking to his father. This day was just filled with surprises. With Jen and them showing up, and then there was Tommy and Kim's argument. And now Eric travels to a different country and doesn't even tell him. What was going on with the world? Deciding not to even go there, Wes sat down at the kitchen table and started on his lesson plan for tomorrow.

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"Frax is Sideon done yet?"

"Well speak of the devil, Petra and I were just talking about you."

"Good things, I hope." Frax heard the sarcasm in Mesogog's voice.

"Since when did the devil do a good thing?"

"Is Sideon ready or not?"

"Sideon is ready for battle, but we'll send him when we're ready, not on your terms."

Mesogog glanced at Frax and pointed to Petra, "Who the hell is she?"

"A long lost friend, but her identity does not concern you. As Petra said, Sideon is complete, but I'll send him out when I'm ready. Apparently some old friends of mine have managed to follow Petra here to the year 2003. I need to make sure he can take on two different ranger teams?"

"Rangers! There are more rangers now!"

"Yes. But not to worry. We will take care of them soon enough."

"You had better!" Mesogog turned on his feet and briskly left Frax in his makeshift lab.

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_A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed chapter 13. We're going o be getting into some action next chapter as our heroes face a tough villain. But I'm having trouble on deciding the next phase of my story. Earlier in the story when Wes and Kim first took the Dino gems, I set it up so that one of them would become an evil ranger. And since I can't figure out who I want it to be, I'm going to let the readers decide. I'm not going to tell who wins, you'll just have to read and see! Thanks to all of you who reviewed last chapter! For all of you who haven't, now's your chance! See you next chapter!_


	14. Meet and Greet

_Disclaimer: I don't own the rangers. I do however own a 2007 Mustang convertible, so suck on that!_

_A/N: I'm not even going to try to explain my three month absence. Just know that I have been through hell the last couple of months, but I've made me way back and I'm getting back to my normal life and writing. So enjoy!_

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Kira slammed her copy of Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ shut and placed it in her backpack before towards her study partner. "I think we'll be fine. Bring on the graded discussion."

Ethan followed Kira's lead as he too placed his book in his own school bag. The blue and yellow rangers had decided to meet at the cyberspace and work on their English assignment together. With their combined knowledge and helpful hints from Haley, the two had finished within a couple of hours. "The cyberspace isn't that packed today, huh?"

Kira glanced around the café noticing that Ethan's observation rang true. "Yea, you're right. But keep in mind it is a Sunday and it's almost 5. The café closes in an hour."

"I guess." Ethan glanced over his shoulder before calling Trent over to the table.

"What can I get for you, Ethan?"

Ethan browsed the menu above the counter, searching for what mostly appealed to him. Finding the winning combination he turned back towards Trent. "I'll have a peach-mango smoothie and an oatmeal raisin cookie."

"Okay, coming right up. Did you want anything Kira?"

Kira, who had frozen the moment Trent came to the table was brought out of her stupor when his question broke her thoughts. _'He knows my name.'_ "No, I'm fine thanks. If I have something now then I'll just get full and I won't be able to eat dinner, and then my mom will start to worry. And god knows she's been on my case lately…So no, I'm fine."

Trent smiled at Kira before walking away to get Ethan's order. Waiting for Trent to get out of earshot Ethan turned his attention to his friend. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Don't be that person, Kira. You know what I'm talking about. You we're blabbering and talking so fast that Cassidy Cornell wouldn't be able to decipher what you were saying. Not to mention your cheeks are as red as Conner's uniform."

"It's nothing."

"Oh it's something." But Ethan quickly dropped the conversation as Kira sent him a deadly glare. "So….about Dr.O and Kim, do you think they're still fighting?"

Kira relaxed at the change of topic before answering Ethan's question. "I don't know. I hope so. These past two days have been way tense when they've been in the same room together. And Wes won't say what they were arguing about."

"I hope they work it out soon. I have a feeling something big is about to happen and we have to be united as a team and not arguing."

Kira smiled at her friend, "You sound like Dr.O."

"He rubs off."

"I wouldn't worry. They've both done this before; they know what they need to do if it becomes a problem."

The conversation was cut short as Trent approached the table with Ethan's smoothie and cookie. "Thanks, Trent." Ethan was about to continue his conversation with Kira, until he realized that Trent was still standing next to the table.

"Hey, Kira. I just wanted to…I wanted you to know…I wanted to let you know…you were amazing Friday night. It was your best performance yet."

Kira knew she was blushing from Trent's comment as she shyly looked down at the table, but bravely picked her head back up. "Thanks, Trent. I'm glad you liked it."

"Yea, well…I better get back to the other customers."

Kira watched as Trent walked a few tables away to check up on the few other people who were in the café. She finally realized her eyes had lingered way too long when Ethan noisily cleared his throat. Nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Kira shifted her eyes back to Ethan. The look he sent her paired with the knowing grin on his face irritated Kira immensely. "Shut up."

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Wes leaned back in his chair as he listened to Trip brief the Time Force team on the information he had obtained. Apparently, Trip had finally located the other time ship, thanks to Haley's coordinates from the time hole. It had been difficult to find but that proved to be only a minor problem for Trip. Unfortunately the time ship had been deserted and whoever had occupied the vessel had been long gone. Jen and Katie had had no such luck contacting Time Force and they still hadn't found out who had stolen the time ship. Now all they could do was sit back and wait for new information to present itself to them.

Wes eyed each one of his former teammates as he watched them work around the lab. The night Kim and Tommy had fought was the night that Lucas and the gang had come to pick him up from the café. They had all agreed to go to the park and catch up with each other. When they had first come here, he had been worried that things may have been different between them, but fortunately that was not the case. They had all easily fallen back into the family they had once been. Joking around and telling each other what they had been up to. Wes hadn't realized how much he had really missed them. Well, at least Katie, Lucas, and Trip. He had definitely realized how much he had missed Jen. Hell, he thought about her at least once a day. That night at the park, hearing her laugh and seeing her radiant smile, he had decided that he wasn't going to dance around his feelings this time around. The first chance he got, he was going to tell her how he felt.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Wes was dragged out of his thoughts by the angelic voice and the hand that lightly touched his shoulder. Wes shifted his body to meet dark hazel eyes and he immediately stopped breathing. Jen was standing so close to him, her hand still on his shoulder and worry etched across her face. Swallowing the huge lump in his throat, Wes answered her. "Yea, I'm fine. I was just spacing out." Looking around Wes noticed that the other rangers were no longer in the lab. "Where did everybody go?"

"Alex and Trip went to the timeship to make sure we have everything we need here. And Katie and Lucas went upstairs to start dinner."

"So are you guys settling in okay?"

"Yea. Great." An uncomfortable silence filled the basement as the two tried to think of something to talk about."

"So should we address the giant elephant that's been lurking in the room?"

Jen gawked at Wes, surprised that he had been so straight forward about their situation. "I guess. We definitely need to talk about it."

Wes suddenly leaped out of his chair and strode over to Jen, carefully grabbing her hand. "I meant what I said Jen. I'm not sorry that I said it and I'm not taking it back either."

As Jen opened her mouth to respond, the lab was filled with a piercing siren coming from the computer. Wes turned to the screen to see tyrannodrones terrorizing civilians at the Reefside Pier. Raising his left wrist, Wes quickly opened communications with Tommy. "Tommy, we've got trouble, tyrannodrones at the pier."

"Got it. I'll alert the others and we'll meet you there."

Wes disconnected the connection before making his way to the other side of the lab. "White Ranger, Dino Power!"

After mounting his ATV, Wes turned his head towards Jen, "We'll talk later." Then he sped off through the back entrance.

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"I don't know what you want me to say. I love you. You know I do. And I would never intentionally hurt you."

"And yet here we are, having this discussion."

"Ryan…" Kimberly took a deep breath as she sat down next to Ryan on the park bench. They had both decided to sit down and actually talk about what was going on in their relationship. And in Kim's opinion, it wasn't going well. "…I can't tell you what it is that I'm doing. Not because I don't trust you, but to protect you. I have to leave at random hours of the day and I can't always be here waiting by your side like before. I need you to trust me, but if you can't do that, than this relationship won't work. I need to do this. I don't have a choice."

"You always have a choice, Kim." As if on cue, the beeping of her bracelet interrupted the conversation. Afraid and unsure of answering it in front of Ryan, Kim simply started grabbing her things before looking apologetically at Ryan. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. Can we finish this later?"

"No! We need to finish this now, Kim!"

Shocked by his answer, Kim turned to completely face Ryan, "What? Ryan, I really need-"

"No, what you need to do is make a choice. You can either sit-down and finish talking so we can work this out or you can run off to wherever it is you go. And if you leave…we're done."

Tears sprang to Kim's eyes as she realized what this meant. She loved Ryan, and no doubt this was going to be a painful break-up, but she wasn't going to walk away from her responsibilities again. She let her team down before. She let Zordon down before. She had been given a second chance and she certainly wasn't going to do it again. "I'm sorry, Ryan." With that said, Kim sprinted into a secluded area and immediately her communicator. In less than a minute, the pink dino ranger was speeding away from the park.

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"Thundermax Saber!" The red ranger quickly jumped into the cluster of tyrannodrones that were now occupying the deserted pier. Swinging swift strikes to his left and right, Conner took out his first two drones. Preparing to parry an on-coming attack from his right, the ranger stopped in his tracks when the group of tyrannodrones surrounding were taken down by blue and yellow blaster fire.

"The cavalry has arrived!" Conner turned his head at the sound of the Ethan's voice to see the yellow and blue rangers pull up beside him on the Raptor riders.

Kira dismounted from her back and walked up next to Conner. "Where's Dr.O?"

Conner converted his saber into a blaster, and then re-holstered it as he answered Kira. "Zeltrax attacked us on our way over here. Dr.O told me to go ahead and he'd take care of Zeltrax. Where are the oth-?" Conner was cut off when a series of powerful blast struck the trio.

The red, blue, and yellow rangers were knocked hard to the ground but immediately started sitting up to see where the surprise attack had come from. Slowly, the smoke from the blast cleared away and standing thirty yards down the pier, a lone figure stood. "You guys okay?" Conner's voice broke the brief silence that had descended on the group.

"Yea, we're good," but the grunt in Kira's voice made it obvious she was in pain.

"Who is that?" Ethan had not once let his eyes off the figure upon standing up and was shocked when the figure appeared not three in front of him in just a blink. The figure roundhouse kicked Ethan in the chest which sent him flying into a ticket booth stand. Kira and Conner prepared to attack the mysterious figure but were sent crashing back down on the pier when he pushed both of them back.

"Okay, this is getting old." Rolling onto her stomach, Kira drew her blaster and fired off several shots that hit the monster directly in the chest. Pushing herself up, but holding her aim, Kira waited to see if her opponent had gone down or if it was still standing. Then out of nowhere, her blaster was viciously slapped out of her hand before she was being lifted up and thrown towards a light pole. Thinking quickly, Kira shifted her body and pushed off the pole as she headed back towards her attacker, "Ptera Grips!" Striking him in the chest and abdomen, he fell back hard onto the ground. Kira landed several feet behind him, watching as he staggered to get back up.

Ethan stumbled towards Kira's side as she helped Conner to stand up. "Nice hit."

"Yea, that was quick thinking," Conner agreed. "Now let's take him out while he's down. Z-Rex blaster!" Conner and Ethan summoned their weapons before combining them to Kira's Ptera Grips. "Fire!"

The three watched in anticipation as the blast headed for the monster, but it immediately turned to horror as the blast ricocheted off of a blue shield that suddenly surrounded his body. The rangers tried to dodge the blast but were too slow. Once the blast impacted the rangers, all three were sent flying in opposite directions, de-morphing in mid-air.

Dazed and confused, Conner glanced around to see if his teammates were okay, but was shaken we he realized that the creature was headed his way. Suddenly, a blur passed by Conner and sent the monster soaring into the nearest lamp pole.

"You okay, Conner?" Conner looked up to see the white ranger standing above him, offering a hand.

Conner grabbed the outstretched hand and pulled himself up. "I'm just peachy. Where were you?"

"Got held up. Tyrannodrones swarmed me on the way over. Where are the others?"

"If by others you mean Kira and Ethan, then I don't know. We got scattered around when we forced de-morphed. This guy is really strong."

"Alright. Find the others and get to safety, I'll hold him off." All of a sudden two hands broke through the wood beneath them and grabbed the white rangers' ankles, pulling him through the pier floor.

"Wes!"

Recovering from the fall, Wes quickly scanned the area around him looking for his enemy. "Conner get to the others and-". The wind was knocked out of Wes as he was tackled to the ground. Grabbing his attacker's wrist and placing his feet under their stomach, Wes pushed him up and over his head before rolling away and standing up. Once again his enemy had seemingly disappeared. Swiftly moving around, careful not to make noise, Wes searched all around for his foe. A loud crack from above caught his attention and in one sudden movement Wes was put in a chock hold and pulled up through the pier floor. "You have got to stop doing that," grunted Wes, as the hold around his neck was tightened. Pulling his right arm away, Wes drove his elbow into the adversary's abdomen twice before he loosened his grip. Two arrows suddenly whizzed by Wes' face and struck his attacker in the throat. Followed by the arrows, a large purple and blue orb collided into the monster hurling him into a concession stand.

Finally released Wes rolled away to see the pink and black rangers running to his side. "Are you okay?"

Coughing violently Wes answered, "Nope. Definitely not okay. Where were you guys?"

"Zeltrax got in my way."

"Got side tracked with Elsa."

Before anymore information could be distributed, the veteran rangers were knocked off their feet by a ground shaking blast. Groaning the three rangers got back onto their feet and glared in the direction where they knew the strike had come from. Again, they were hit with more blasts, only this time it came from behind them. A bright light blinded the three of them as their suits gave out and left them in civilian form.

"My name is Sideon," the figure said as he quickly approached the downed rangers, "and my mission is to destroy you all." Kim and Wes watched in dread as Tommy was pulled up by his shirt collar and held up high in the air. "I will start with you, black ranger."

Sideon dropped Tommy as he was struck several times in the back by blaster shots. Tommy and the others turned to see Kira holding her previously discarded blaster in hand. As Sideon got up and made his way towards Kira, he was tackled back down to the ground by Ethan and Conner. All three went straight to the ground but the two rangers recovered quickly.

"We gotta go," Kira announced as she ran up to her teammates. Grabbing a hold of Kim, Kira turned around and started walking away from where Sideon was slowly getting up. Immediately Kira signaled everyone to cover their ears before she let out a sonic scream that sent Sideon flying onto a table. Satisfied that they had ample time to get away from Sideon, the rangers continued to make their way away from the pier. They were only a few feet away when Frax appeared out of nowhere in front of them. All six rangers leaped back and fell into defensive positions.

"I'm not going to kill. At least not today. I'm here to deliver a message. Give this to your friends from the future; they will know what it is." Wes hesitantly reached for the small square object before withdrawing rather quickly once the device was in his hands. "Sideon, you have done well. Return to the lair immediately."

"Yes, master." And in a flash both villains were gone.

Kim took a deep breath before lowering her fist and turning to her teammates. "What the hell just happened?"

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"Sideon is under my command and I ordered him to retreat. I've seen all I've needed to see."

"You could have destroyed them! They were right where you needed them to be and YOU retreated!"

"You constantly underestimate the rangers, Mesogog. It is why all you have seen is defeat. Sideon did well today. But he could have been greatly injured when going up against all six rangers at one time. Hence the idea to split them up."

Mesogog growled, "And that didn't work either!"

"It would have if you incompetent henchmen had kept them busy a little while longer. But apparently even when they are in one-on-one combat, the rangers still prove to be too much for them. And to make matters worse now we have to worry about eleven rangers not just six."

"If you had destroyed the first six then we wouldn't have to worry about eleven!"

"What's done is done, Mesogog. Some good still came out of this. I have the seen the rangers weapons, I have seen how it affects Sideon. With a few minor adjustments, that will change. If that's all you have to say, then please leave so I can start making the necessary changes."

Mesogog stormed out the lab as his mind began to race. Finding Elsa and Zeltrax in the main chamber, he quickly summoned them over to him. "Keep an eye on Frax. He's up to something." Opening an inviso-portal, Mesogog stepped through and left Zeltrax and Elsa standing in silence.

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Haley glanced around at the lab full of rangers. Five looked anxious and concerned while the other six were bruised and exhausted. She had arrived shortly after Kira and Ethan had left the café and had walked in just in time to see the rangers retreating on the screen. She had asked Jen what had happened, seeing as how she had watched the whole thing, but even she had been too awe struck to give a detailed answer. The remaining TF rangers had been called in once the Dino team had returned from their brief battle at the pier. Now all of them were gathered in the Dino Lair.

"We'll start from the beginning, what happened?"

"We got the crap beat out of us that's what happened." Ethan winced as his fingers lightly brushed across his bruised cheek.

Tommy breathed in heavily before answering Haley's inquiry. "I got a call from Wes telling me that there were tyrannodrones attacking at the pier. I told him I'd meet him there and that I would alert that others. I alerted Kira and since Conner was already with me we stared to head over there."

Kira jumped in, "And Ethan was with me. We told Haley the situation, called Kim and then went to meet everyone at the pier."

"Once I got the call from Kira, I headed straight there, but then Elsa intercepted me on the way there. I had to take care of her first."

"Zeltrax slowed me and Conner down too, but I had Conner ride ahead while I dealt with Zeltrax."

Wes sat up straight as something occurred to him. "And the tyrannodrones stopped me. But no one bothered to engage Ethan and Kira."

"They wanted to split us up," Conner said in realization.

"They didn't just split us up. They separated the veterans from the rookies. They wanted to take you guys out first, thinking it would be easier. But Frax called him off, why?"

Trip, who had been listening intently, took in all the information that was being given. "Frax showed up to call him off? And you guys have never seen this…Sideon guy before?" Several nods of 'no' allowed him to continue. Trip turned to look towards his own teammates. "What if this guy is the one who stole the timeship? If Frax is ordering him around, maybe Sideon is working for Frax."

Katie was quick to agree with Trip's assessment, "That makes sense. We need to look into this."

"And we need to make sure before he makes his next move. If this guy is from the future then you guys will have back-up the next time he shows up." Alex turned towards Wes. "Now what about the device he handed to you. Where is it?"

"Right here," Wes said as he handed it over to Alex.

Alex glanced at it before handing it to Trip. "It's a memo. Trip, run a diagnostic on this tonight. We need to make sure its safe to open first."

Tommy glanced at the clock; 7:15pm. Turning to his head towards Conner, Ethan and Kira, "You guys should head home. It's getting late. Try and get some rest tonight, I don't want you guys exhausted when you come to school tomorrow."

Kira's voice could be heard as the three teens slowly shuffled up the stairs. "How are we supposed to get to our cars?"

"And I left my car at the park," Kim murmured as she suddenly remembered her car wasn't here.

"I'll take the kids back to the cyberspace." Haley volunteered before following them up the stairs.

Knowing that Tommy and Kim were still not on speaking terms Wes walked towards Kim. "I'll take you to get your car."

Not another word was spoken as the lab cleared out as everyone went upstairs. In a matter of moments Haley and Wes were pulling out of Tommy's driveway.

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Kim entered through her front door and silently stepped in as she placed her keys on the small table. Walking into the living room she saw Ryan sitting on the couch with a blank look on his face. Slowly approaching him, Kim took a seat next to him on the couch.

"Where do we go from here?"

His voice was soft and broken that hearing it immediately brought tears to her eyes.

"I don't know."

It was silent for several minutes before Ryan spoke up again. "You can take the house if you want. Someone needs to live in for at least the next year."

"No, you take it. It's your house. I'll move out."

"I know better than to argue with you." Ryan turned to look at Kim before slowly leaning towards her a pressing a light kiss to the side of her mouth. "I love you, Kimberly Hart."

"I love you too. I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I can't be what you need anymore." She was cut off as Ryan gently used his thumbs to wipe the tears that had stared pouring down her face. Kim grabbed one of his hands a lightly kissed his palm.

"I am too." Ryan reached over and kissed her one last time on her forehead before hugging her to him and letting her cry on his shoulder.

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_A/N: My first chapter back I hope you guys enjoyed it. I'll have the next Chapter posted no later than Friday, so look out for it. Don't forget to review. See you next chapter!_


	15. Let Go

_Disclaimer: Don't own the rangers...still. What the heck is Disney thinking!_

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"Greeting, Rangers. I'll get straight to the point. I want you to bring Ransik to me. I'm sure the reptilian rangers have notified you of their first meeting with Sideon. Sideon is my creation. Based on my last two projects, I'm sure you know exactly what he, and more importantly, what I am capable of. Give me what I want and I will call Sideon off. I'm giving you an ample amount of time to make your decision. Make sure it is a wise one."

It had been another slow Monday as both the Time Force and Dino Rangers had anxiously waited to hear what Frax had sent in the memo. It was well into the late afternoon when everyone got the call to meet at the Lair to open the memo. Now, both teams sat in silence as they pondered Frax's words.

"Well at least we got some questions answered," Conner commented.

Kira took in a deep sigh before responding to Conner's statement. "Yeah, but now we have a bunch of unanswered ones."

Alex stood up and began pacing the lab his own set of questions started to go through his head. _What was Frax up to? Was he really going to back off if they gave him Ransik? And just what exactly did he want with Ransik. To kill him?_ There were so many things to consider. He tuned back into the other conversation.

"And now we're back to square one." Jen pointed out. "If Frax built Sideon, then Sideon can't have been the one who stole the timeship. So a player is still unaccounted for."

"Not to mention Frax wanting his revenge against Ransik." Kim threw in.

"I'm more concerned about what Frax wants to do with Ransik. Is he just going to kill him and call it even?" Alex looked towards Lucas as the blue ranger voiced Alex's main question.

Wes leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs."And even if we actually consider this, how can we be sure that Frax will keep his word. We still don't know his ulterior motive. I highly doubt he built Sideon to help kill Ransik."

"And why attack you guys," Katie glanced at the Dino rangers, "to show off Sideon?"

"Well he didn't do a good job of it. We still held our own out there, and we were de-morphed half the time." Conner grumbled.

Haley, who had remained silent until then, spoke up. "Let's not forget his teaming up with Mesogog. That doesn't make any sense either."

"What do you think, Trip?"

Everyone turned their head to the green-haired xybrian who had yet to speak up in the conversation. Trip knew that the Time Force team and Wes knew of his ability and highly valued his opinion on any matter. "I think Frax will stay true to his word. To his exact word. It's what he's not saying that we need to worry about. He's up to something. I can feel it."

"What do you think we should do?" Trip could hear the respect in Alex's voice. He knew that whatever he suggested Alex and the others would seriously consider. It's why he felt completely comfortable with voicing his suggestion.

"Frax is counting on us to deny his request. I think we should give him something he's not expecting."

"And what exactly are we going to give him?"

"We're going to give him Ransik."

"Are you serious?" Ethan exasperatedly asked.

Kira joined Ethan in the questioning of Trip. "Can that even be done? Isn't he in the future?"

"If Trip says we can do it, then we can do it. We don't question him we just do as we are told." Katie let a smile slide on her face as she soothed the younger ranger's worries. "That's the advantage of having a psychic on the team. He's very handy in situations like this."

Kim was astonished, "Your psychic?"

"Kind of. I can't really control it. It's more like a gut feeling than anything."

"Well, can you see what Frax is going to do then? Because I really don't think giving the bad guy another even stronger bad guy is the smart choice here."

"Guys calm down." Wes got up and walked over to his former green-haired teammate and laid a hand on his shoulder. "There are three rules you need to remember regarding Trip. Rule number one: In Trip we trust. Rule Number Two: Trip is not to be used for personal matters." The Time Force rangers laughed when Wes glared at Lucas.

"What's the last rule?" Haley asked curiously, amused that they had created rules for their friend.

"When in doubt, see rule one."

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Jen patiently waited for Wes in the woods behind Tommy's house that evening. He had told her that he wanted to finish their conversation from yesterday before anything else got in their way. She had whole heartily agreed but was now beginning to regret her decision to come here. She knew what she was going to say to him but it didn't stop here from being nervous. Jen closed her eyes as that day on the beach began to replay in her head.

"_I don't know what to say, Jen." _

"_Don't say anything. I'm going to miss you Wes Collins. Don't you ever forget me."_

"_Never could." _

"_Wait! Jen wait!"_

"_I love you, Jen. I love you so much. Don't you ever forget what an amazing woman you are, and don't change for anyone. Your perfect they way you are."_

_Tears had pourn down her face at those words. But she was about to leave him. She hadn't wanted to make it harder by telling him her feelings too. So she settled for the only thing that came to mind._

"_I told you not to say anything,"_

Just thinking about that day still caused her heartache. Wes was all she had thought about the past eight months since they had left. After her return home, she had realized that it was a good thing nothing had happened between them. Leaving him was bad enough. She couldn't even imagine how much pain they would have both been in had they started a relationship. Not to mention the situation with Alex. Those problems still lingered too. They weren't together anymore but she knew it would hurt him nonetheless. No matter what reasons she verbalized for breaking up with him, deep down, her and Alex both knew that she had left him because of her love for Wes. Jen was pulled from her thoughts at the sound of sticks breaking and leaves crunching. As she anticipated seconds later, Wes emerged from the trees.

"Hey." The word itself was casual but the way he said made it sound so intimate. Jen watched him carefully as he slowly approached, stopping when he was a few feet from her.

"Hey, yourself."

"Sorry I took so long. The others wanted to make sure I'm going to the café later." Silence hung in the air as they both nervously stared at each other.

Jen had no idea what to say so she started to make small talk. "You and the other dino rangers, you guys close?"

Wes was both relieved and slightly annoyed at the subject change. "Conner, Ethan, and Kira are still adjusting to each other. Same thing goes for Tommy, Kim, and me. We're getting the hang of it, we'll get there eventually."

"So do you like wearing white?"

"Don't do that, Jen."

"Do what?"

"Try to avoid the conversation we're both trying to have. We did that enough last time."

"You're right." Jen casually leaned on a tree as she motioned for Wes to talk. "Since you're so eager, why don't you speak first?"

"I did. Yesterday. I told you how I felt."

"No, you didn't. You told that you had meant what you said. And that you didn't regret saying it. You were referring to the past not the present."

Agitated Wes ran his hand through his hair before taking a deep breath. "Alright, fine. I'm in love with you Jen. That hasn't changed at all. If anything it's only gotten stronger. I don't know how long you're going to be here but I do know that I don't want to waste my time dancing around my feelings like I did last time. I want to be with you, Jen."

Jen had remained silent during Wes' declaration and after he finished she straightened up from the tree and walked up to Wes. Grabbing his hands in hers and looking into his eyes. "I'm not going to deny that I have feelings for you Wes because I do. You mean so much to me. Your friendship means so much to me." Jen swallowed the huge lump that had formed in her throat before she continued. "But that is all we can and ever will be is friends."

Wes' face instantly fell the moment she finished her sentence. He had no idea what to say. He was so sure that she wanted this as much as he did. That night at the park, she had mentioned that her and Alex had been split for awhile and that had assured Wes that there was no longer anything keeping them from being together. "What? Why?"

"Wes, we are from two different times. Sure we're together now but sooner or later I'm going to have to leave. And that's only going to hurt us in the end. Not to mention I'd be breaking several rules. I could lose my job. A few weeks of fun aren't worth a lifetime of pain."

"Yes, it is!" Wes' sudden urgency had caught her off guard. "When it's me and you, it always is, Jen. We are so much more than 'fun' Jen. You know that it'd be worth it."

"No, I don't Wes. And I don't want to find out either. I'm content with what we have now. We care about each other, let's just leave it at that."

"Why are you so afraid? Do you think that I'll hurt you?"

"I'm not afraid, Wes. I'm being smart about this. I'm not going to throw my life away on some whim."

"Is that what I am to you? A whim?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it. I mean that we will get over this. We'll meet new people and we'll find the happiness we want with them. With people from our own time."

"I understand what you're saying Jen, I really do, but I can't accept it. I won't accept it. Stop letting your fears and rules control you. Throw the rulebook out the window for once."

Jen stepped back from Wes. That had done it. "Stop saying that! You always say that! Throw the rulebook out the window, yet I don't see you risking anything! Your career isn't on the line!" Jen took a deep breath to calm herself before continuing. "Nothing is going to happen between us. I don't care if you don't like, you're just going to have to deal with it. I'm not going to change my mind." Jen blew past Wes before turning to him one last time. "And Wes, you will accept it." With that, Jen disappeared into the woods.

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Kim took a sip of her iced coffee as she sifted her way through a newspaper. Every once in awhile she would comment on the others conversation or answer the questions that were directed towards her, but her main focus was looking for a new place. In fact, she had been so focused that she hadn't even heard Conner's question to her.

"Kim? Kim? Hello, any one in there?"

Conner's waving hand snapped her out of her reverie, and brought back to table at the café. "Sorry guys, kind of drifted away there, what's up?"

"We were just saying how difficult our lives' were getting with our new 'jobs' and we're wondering how you balanced it out."

"Well," Kim laid her paper down before answering Ethan's question. "I'm not really sure how we did it to be honest. It seemed like every time we turned around there was something wreaking havoc somewhere. But I think it had something to do with how close we all were. We were always together. Rather we'd be at school, at the youth center, or just hanging out on the weekends. We did homework together, projects together, went to each other's different events together. It was like we were one big family, instead of a group of friends."

"Didn't you guys ever get sick of each other?"

Kim laughed. Leave to Conner to ask such a blunt question. "We didn't always agree on the same things, and there were a few times when we got into arguments. But that's what made us a family. We cared enough about to each other to not hold back what any of us were thinking. But at the end of the day, no matter what was said or done, we were all just thankful that we had made it to the next day and that we were still together."

"Are you guys still close?"

"We all keep in contact as much as we can, but it's hard to see each other because we are so spread out over the world. But in the rare occasions that we do get together, it's like nothing has changed. It's as if we're all still a group a teenagers, joking around and having fun."

"I wonder if we'll ever be like that." Conner glanced to either side of him to look at both his blue and yellow teammates.

"You will. I'm sure of it. "

A moment of understanding and silence passed between the three younger rangers as they let Kim's words soak in. The moment was broken at the sound of the front door bell ringing, signifying that someone had just walked in. Curious as to who it was, all four rangers eyes went to the door. They were pleased to see that it was none other than Wes. As the white ranger spotted them and headed over towards their usually table, the others couldn't help but notice that he looked upset and angry.

Once he sat down, Kim asked the question that she knew was everyone's mind. "Hey, you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." At the glances he got Wes let a genuine smile slip across his face as he saw the worried and curious glances of his teammates. "Seriously, I'm fine. Promise." Seeing that his teammates were slightly reassured he quickly changed the subject. "So what did I miss?"

"Nothing much. We started off by sharing with each other what we were going to order. Kim got an iced coffee, Kira a mixed berry smoothie, Conner an iced tea, no ice, extra lemon and I got what I think was a caffeinated cup of coffee even though I asked for decaf. Then Conner, Kira, and I started talking about school and random stuff for a while. Then we realized Kim wasn't really in the conversation. And then we spent about five minutes trying to drag Kim's face out of the paper, which we succeeded in. And finally Kim enlightened us with a rundown about her and the others lives in high school. We had a brief tender moment and then you came in, leading us to this very discussion."

The rangers shared a laugh after Ethan finished debriefing Wes on what had happened in the past twenty-five minutes they had been here. "So why were you so engrossed in the paper Kim?"

"I was looking for an apartment or a house to rent."

"What? Why?"

Kim debated on whether or not to tell them about her break-up. She knew that the others had known about her and Ryan being together. To not tell them would be wrong, besides they were her teammates and her friends. They deserved to know. "Ryan and I broke up last night."

Kira unconsciously moved closer to Kim as she tried to comfort the pink ranger. "I'm sorry to hear that Kim. What happened?"

"It got too hard for him. With me disappearing all the time and not being able to tell him where I was or where I was going. I could only tell him so much, you know."

"That's stupid! If he loved you, then he should have been able to trust you and understa-Ow!"

"Shut up, Conner. That's so not the right thing to say right now."

"Seriously, Conner." Ethan glared at his leader, who was currently rubbing his shoulder where Kira had hit him.

Surprisingly to the others, Kim came to Ryan's defense. "You have to understand it from his point of view. I can't really blame him. I'm sure it looks really bad. Hell, if I keep this up the next thing to go will my job."

"I can empathize with you there. Randall has been on me and Tommy's case for are unexplained disappearances."

"She's been on your case? Kira, Ethan and I have had detention almost everyday after school for the past two weeks fro our tardiness. We're going to get held back if this continues to happen."

Ethan nodded his head in agreement. "Wouldn't it just be easier to tell people who we are? We wouldn't have to lie so much, not to mention we could actually maintain a normal life without the risk of being lonely, jobless, or a high school drop out."

"But think of the risks of telling people," commented Kira. "People would always be hounding us with questions. I'm sure the press would have a field day with that one."

"And let's not forget the more important thing, our families. We could be putting them in danger too. It's bad enough that our big bad knows who we are, but could you imagine what other people might to do. Not everyone in this world is good; there are a lot of unstable people out there."

Kim added on to Wes and Kira's reasoning. "I can't tell you how many times are parents were used as targets to get to us. I'm so thankful that each and every time we were able to keep them safe."

Another silence descended on the table as Ethan and Conner took in their teammate's words. "I guess your right. I would rather spend my whole life in detention if it meant keeping my mom and dad safe." Conner nodded his head in agreement with Ethan.

"Look Kim, I know that we haven't been friends that long, but if you want, you could move in with me. My house is too big for just one person and I have a spare bedroom in my house that you could take, if you're interested."

Kim quickly ran the idea through her head. She did prefer to live in a house rather than in an apartment and she could tell that Wes was sincere when about his offer for her. And not just doing it because he felt bad for her. Besides if she was honest with herself she didn't want to stay in that house any longer. It would be way too awkward to continue to live there with Ryan while she found a new home. An offer had presented itself and she was going to take it. "Really? Thank you so much, Wes! You have no idea how much this means to me." Kim leaned over and briefly hugged Wes.

"Well that worked out nicely," Ethan said, smiling. "Not twenty-four hours after the break-up and you already found a new place to move. That's got to be a record."

"Well, whenever you're ready you can come by and take a look at the house."

"How about now?"

"Now's good. Let's go." Wes and Kim both got up to leave the café but they stopped when they got near the door. Both of them turned to look at the three teenagers still sitting at the table. "You guys coming?"

Three chairs streaked across as the floor as Conner, Kira, and Ethan leaped out of their chairs to join them. The five rangers waved a goodbye to Haley before leaving the café.

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The five Time Force officers stood in the timeship looking towards the chrono-communicator as they waited to be connected with Captain Logan at Time Force Headquarters.

"Rangers." Captain Logan's screen popped in the middle of the council. "Glad to see you made it okay. We will discuss your insubordination and breach of security later. Bring me up to date."

"Yes, sir." Alex spoke for all the rangers. "After taking the ship to pursue the criminal, we landed in the year 2003. At first, we weren't exactly sure what to do. Whoever it was that stole the timeship was gone and out of are scanners reach by the time we landed."

"Do you know who it was who stole the timeship?"

"No, sir."

"Continue."

"We continued to scan for the next few days, but found nothing. It was when we asked Circuit looked into the years' current events that we discovered the existence of the Dino Thunder rangers. Soon after, we discovered that an old friend of ours attack the dino rangers. It was Frax, sir."

"Frax! I thought he was dead!"

"We thought so too, sir. But apparently once again he's escaped. When meeting the rangers we discovered that Wes Collins, was apart of the Dino team, he is their white ranger now." Logan looked shocked for a brief second before ordering Alex to continue. "Apparently Frax has formed some sort of alliance with the Dino rangers' archenemy, Mesogog. We recently discovered that Frax has managed to build another robot, only this one is different from Dragontron and Doomtron. He's the size of a normal human, but he's extremely powerful. The Dino rangers have already encountered him in battle. Frax calls him Sideon. We're sending you some video feed now."

Captain Logan looked thoughtful as he watched the feed from the Dino rangers' battle with Sideon. Logan disappeared for a few seconds before addressing the rangers again. "The night the academy was attacked, some technology was stolen out of headquarters before whoever stole it fled in the time machine. For the past couple of years Time Force has been working on a super suit so to speak. It isn't designed like the ranger powers; it was more for the prison guards than anything. Increased speed, strength, and weaponry, and body sized force fields to name a few features. I believe this Sideon is our super suit. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, sir. We've made brief contact with Frax. He's demanding that we hand over Ransik. If we do so, he claims that he'll call off Sideon." Alex hesitated before continuing. "Sir, we would like to request that you send Ransik here. Trip has a plan and we are all confident that it will work."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

Lucas cleared his throat as he stepped forward. "With all due respect, sir, Ransik has not once been a problem since he turned himself in. He's even helped us with some problems that we've had in the past few months. I think he's more than proven to us that he is reformed."

"I am aware of your relationship with Ransik's daughter, Officer Kendall and I understand how that could taint your judgment on this matter. But I can't take the risk of letting Ransik out again. Your request is denied."

"Sir." Jen also stepped forward. "No one despises Ransik more than I do, and I assure that regardless of whatever he has or hasn't proven that he will always in my eye, be the enemy. He will have security around twenty-four seven, especially when we allow him to go to Frax. We made the mistake of letting him escape once and that will not happen again."

Everyone grew silent as they took in Jen's words. Finally after what felt like hours the Captain cleared his throat and directed his gaze towards Jen. "Request granted, Lieutenant. But I won't be sending him alone. I'll make arrangements for his transfer, but it will take awhile. Keep in touch for further updates. Logan out."

The screen disappeared in a blink once the call had been disconnected. All eyes turned to Jen after a second of silence. "Wow, Jen that was…" Trip couldn't find the word to describe what he though that was. "…harsh?"

"No, it's the truth." Alex's voice sound cold and distant.

"He has changed, you guys. I wish you could see that. Trip and Katie do."

"You, Trip and Katie, don't have a jagged scar running down your back from when he tried to kill you."

Jen's voice was filled with anger and venom as she added on to Alex's words. "And you guys have no idea what it feels like to watch him strike down someone you love. For as long as I live, I will never ever forget that."

An uncomfortable silence filled the timeship for awhile before Trip broke the silence. "I guess we agree to disagree. As long as we all remain professional, our opinions about Ransik don't matter." Everyone nodded in agreement as they looked around at each other.

"We should head back now." The rangers followed Katie out of the timeship and towards Haley's car, which they had borrowed, piled in and started the journey back to Reefside.

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"Thanks for the ride, Kim." Tommy watched from his porch as Haley shut the door to Kim's car and started her way towards him. He knew that Haley was here to pick up her car that she had let the Time Force borrow while she worked at the café this evening. Without words, Tommy pulled Haley's keys out of his pocket and threw them towards her to catch. Once the keys were in her hands, she threw Tommy a quick smile before getting in her car and quickly driving off. It was then that Tommy noticed that Kim had yet to pull out of his driveway, and was in fact getting out of her car. He took that as a sign that she wanted to talk.

"Hey."

"Hey." Kim glanced down and the ground and kicked at the gravel before lifting her head back up and looking at black ranger. "Tommy, I'm sorry about what happened the other day. It was completely uncalled for."

"No, I'm sorry. I was too sensitive. We never got a chance to talk about the whole break-up scenario and all of those feelings we bottle inside just came pouring out."

"Yeah, we definitely need to talk about that before go any farther with this friendship. Start all over again without the past baggage."

"Do you have time now?"

"Of course. But I don't think your driveway is the best place to talk about this."

"There's a Starbucks not far from here, we can go there."

"Sounds perfect."

"But you can't tell Haley we went there, she'll flip." Kim and Tommy shared a laugh as they both strolled back over to her car.

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_A/N: It is safe to say that 2007 has been _the_ worst year of my life. I apologize for the extreme delay but this had to take a back seat for awhile. Hopefully 2008 brings a lot more happiness and a lot more updates. Let me know what you guys think. And I wish you all Happy Holidays!!_


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